


A Mirror For Observers

by ivorygates



Series: A Mirror For Observers [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Quantum Mirror, Stargate SG-1 AU: Daniverse, genderflip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 160,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Daniel Jackson had been born female?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a rec for this story. I didn't write it. But it is my go-too happy place, even if it makes me blush: http://stargateficrec.livejournal.com/1264410.html

General Hammond, Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, and Teal'c are there.

Daniel Jackson is not there.

O'Neill looks at his watch. They've been waiting ten minutes now.

"Late," he says succinctly. The briefing is for 1330, not 1340, or 1345, or 1400, or...

"I'll have Sgt. Harriman phone up to his office, Colonel," General Hammond says.

"No, General. I'll go get him." Daniel will take the call, say he's on his way, and then there will be just one more thing...

He heads out of the conference room.

Twenty-four languages and 'punctual' isn't one of them.

#

She looks around.

Weren't they just on PHX-1138?

As in, _on_ PHX-1138?

Obviously not. This is her office. She shakes her head. She supposes she'd better tell Janet.

She hates telling Janet things like this. And Janet just hates hearing that members of SG-1 have had Missing Time events.

She looks around some more. Frowns.

Someone has been in her office.

Everything's been moved around.

Things are missing.

Where's her shrunken head collection?

Somebody's idea of a joke? Somebody urgently looking for something? They haven't been gone that long.

"Dammit," she mutters, starting to clear off her desk and carry books back to the shelves.

She forgets all about PHX-1138.

#

"Daniel--"

She looks up.

Jack is standing in the doorway.

"Jack, do you have any idea what's...?"

Her words slow. She doesn't finish the sentence.

He doesn't look happy. He's staring at her as if he's never seen her before in his life.

They've been on SG-1 together for five years.

#

When he gets to Daniel's office the door is open. There's someone behind the desk, and for a heartbeat he thinks it's Daniel.

And then she looks up and says his name.

 _She._

She looks enough like Daniel to be his twin sister. Same glasses. Same mop of hair he had the first time O'Neill saw him. She's wearing an SGC uniform. The shoulder flash says SG-1. All the details are perfect.

Her expression, her body language, everything says she's completely at home here. Not expecting trouble, even when she sees him.

#

"Who are you?"

The flat hostility in his voice fills her with a sudden surge of alarm.

"Jack?" She sets down the book she's holding. Slowly. She doesn't want to startle him. Has he gone crazy? The grim truth of their job is that it does happen. Has happened. Probably will happen again.

He reaches out and slaps the panic button beside her door, never taking his eyes off her. She doesn't relax, but in a moment the SFs will be here and they can start to fix this. She tries to remember where they just were, and to her alarm, she can't. She has the sickening feeling she's forgotten something terribly important, something vital.

"Jack, what's going on?" She starts to move out from behind her desk.

"Don't move, whoever you are."

The SFs arrive.

"Found her in Daniel's office. Lock her up until General Hammond figures out what to do with her."

He's speaking to them, not her.

"What? I-- What? Jack, this is _my_ office! It's mine!"

But the SFs regard her with no recognition at all.

She backs away as the SFs advance. They're pointing their rifles at her. She hates having guns pointed at her.

 _"Your_ office?" Jack says, feigning grossly exaggerated disbelief. In reality, she knows he's listening closely, probing for information.

As if she's the enemy.

The SFs have her backed into a corner by now. She knows it's useless to fight, but they're crowding her, not giving her the time she needs to relax and cooperate.

"And you are?" he adds.

The SFs have their hands on her now, slinging their weapons out of the way. She's shaking with the effort it takes not to struggle.

"Danielle Jackson," she says, answering him as they march her out. _"Doctor_ Danielle Jackson. And just in case you've forgotten, Jacky Boy, I've been a member of SG-1 for the last five years."

#

O'Neill stands in the doorway to Daniel's office for a long moment after the SFs have removed the woman.

She's shorter than Daniel is.

Otherwise, it's a great act.

She sounds just like him.

However, she _isn't_ him, and that means Daniel's missing.

He picks up the handset of the phone on the wall and dials the Conference Room.

"General? O'Neill. I'm in Daniel's office. We have an intruder in custody. And we need to start looking for Daniel. He's missing."

#

There are a number of different guest accommodations in the SGC. This is one of the least attractive: a set of bunk beds in a small dark room.

She's a prisoner.

Jack has had her imprisoned.

The SFs would have done it even if they recognized her -- he's a Colonel, after all -- but she's willing to swear they didn't know who she was. And of all the accusations Jack could have laid against her, it hardly made sense that all he could come up with was that she was in the wrong office.

Who's Daniel?

She wants to understand this better before she starts making a real fuss. She thought at first that something was wrong with Jack, but ... why was everything so disorganized in her office? Jack doesn't know anyone named Daniel. Her name is Dani. Jack knows _her_.

Only Jack doesn't seem to know her.

Two hours later Jack comes back. General Hammond is with him. She feels a pang of relief. She'd trust Jack with her life and everything she holds dear, but she has an abiding faith in General Hammond's ability to fix things.

"General Hammond!" she says, getting to her feet.

"You recognize me?" General Hammond says doubtfully. He glances at Jack.

"She says her name is Daniel Jackson," Jack says. There is a clear note of derision in his voice.

"Yes, I recognize you, General Hammond," she says, ignoring Jack. She searches for signs of a similar recognition in his face. There are none.

"And your name is Daniel Jackson?" General Hammond asks.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, she makes a face.

"My name is _Danielle_ Jackson, General Hammond. Who is Daniel Jackson?"

Hammond ignores this question, which doesn't surprise her. "How did you get into this facility?"

"Through the Stargate. We just came back from PHX-1138." It's disturbing how long it had taken her to retrieve that memory, and she's still not quite sure of it. But this is not the time to bring something like that up.

"'We'?" Jack speaks at last.

"SG-1," she says. "You, me, Teal'c, Sammy. It was a routine mission. We found some interesting ruins. I took notes, I took film, I took samples, we came back."

"I don't know who the hell you are, but..." Jack begins. His eyes have narrowed, and he's regarding her with outright hostility now.

"Colonel," General Hammond says. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

Jack subsides, but she can't understand why he's so angry.

 _Daniel_ Jackson?

"Dr. ... Jackson," General Hammond continues, turning back to her. "I'd like you to accompany Colonel O'Neill to the infirmary so that we can run some tests. Can we count on your cooperation?"

She nods, unable to stop herself from glancing toward Jack for reassurance. It isn't forthcoming, and that adds to her sense of impending disaster. Only the disaster has already happened, and she just doesn't understand it yet.

"Yes. Of course. General, what's going on?"

"Just bear with us, Dr. Jackson," General Hammond says.

#

She follows Jack down to the infirmary. Two SFs are right behind them.

She doesn't even bother trying to question Jack. She knows that right now it wouldn't do any good. He's in a rare mood.

The doctor he hands her over to is unfamiliar. Her name is Brightman.

Where's Janet?

#

She's had many workups here in the infirmary, and been hospitalized here for a number of things, including an emergency appendectomy, but this is by far the most thorough going-over she's ever had.

Do they think she's a _Goa'uld_?

Is there a possibility there _is_ a _Goa'uld_? That she was infested on PHX-1138?

She feels faintly nauseated at the thought. She knows the _Goa'uld_ can hide from their hosts as well as from observers. She knows the _Tok'ra_ have a method for removing _Goa'uld_ from their hosts, but that it's far from foolproof, and can kill the host.

If Jack suspects that's what was wrong with her, he wouldn't have told her, in case it causes the larval _Goa'uld_ to try to take control immediately.

When Brightman is finished, Dani dresses and sits on one of the beds. No one has explained anything to her. Some of the tests will take hours to show results, like the DNA sequence. What is it supposed to show?

Are they comparing her DNA to someone else's? Whose? (Who is Daniel?)

#

"The woman in my infirmary is Daniel Jackson," Dr. Brightman says.

"Ah... no?" Colonel O'Neill says.

Brightman sighs. "She's completely human. From Earth, in fact. She's not a _Goa'uld_. Aside from the essentially minor differences occasioned by a set of XX chromosomes rather than an XY set, she's genetically identical to Dr. Daniel Jackson. And more to the point--"

Major Carter and General Hammond lean forward, sensing that the doctor is about to tell them something important. Teal'c remains impassive. O'Neill leans back, slouching.

"--whoever she is, she has the same allergies that Dr. Jackson has. She has the same medications in her bloodstream. She takes the same optical prescription. She has the same dental records. I questioned her about her medical history, and she gives the same one that I have in Dr. Jackson's file, starting with childhood diseases and continuing right down to two years ago. Including offworld locations."

"Thank you, Doctor," General Hammond says. "You've been very helpful." Sounding as if she's been anything but. "Dismissed."

Dr. Brightman leaves, looking troubled.

"This does not provide us information on the current location of Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says.

"Is it possible that this woman _is_ Daniel?" Sam Carter's voice is tentative.

"Carter, if the woman was Daniel, she'd say she was Daniel. She says her name is ... 'Danielle,'" O'Neill says, sounding disgruntled.

"But she _does_ claim to be a member of SG-1," General Hammond says.

Carter frowns, on the trail of a new puzzle.

"Why would her information be two years old?" she asks.

"She should be required to explain this," Teal'c says implacably.

Hammond asks the SFs to bring their guest up from the infirmary.

#

She strides in ahead of them. She doesn't gawk at anything, though by rights what she's seeing should be strange to her. Apparently it isn't. Her eyes go immediately to Carter and Teal'c. Her eyes widen at the sight of Teal'c, as if there's finally something she didn't expect to see.

Hair. Two years ago, Teal'c didn't have hair.

This is stupid. Why would somebody infiltrate the SGC with a perfect copy of Daniel from two years ago and make it the wrong sex?

"Sammy! Teal'c..?"

The inflection is Daniel's. The body-language is Daniel's; the same half-gawky nervous energy.

"You don't ... recognize me." The woman's voice is flat with disappointment.

Carter shakes her head apologetically.

"Sit down ... Dr. Jackson," General Hammond says. She steps forward, puts her hand on the back of a chair. Daniel's chair. Hesitates.

"No. Tell me what's going on, General. Why don't any of you recognize me? What happened to my office? Who is Daniel? And where's Janet Fraiser?"

The last question startles all of them, though it shouldn't, given the two-year gap she's done nothing to conceal. Janet Fraiser died almost six months ago. Daniel knows that. He was there.

"Sit down, Dr. Jackson," General Hammond repeats.

"Sit!" O'Neill barks, as if calling an unruly dog to heel.

She pulls out the chair and flops into it, folding her arms across her chest, glaring down at the table. The perfect imitation of Daniel in a sulk.

"Perhaps she is another Asgard clone," Teal'c suggests to the table at large.

"But in that case, her memories ought to be perfectly up-to-date," Carter says. "Colonel O'Neill's were. And she'd know--"

"Hey, Sammy? Still here," the woman says, raising her hand.

"Sorry," Carter says.

"Maybe you'd better start by explaining who you are," O'Neill says.

The woman lowers her chin, rubbing the bridge of her nose and pushing her glasses up.

"My name is Danielle Jackson. Dr. Danielle Jackson. I am a member of SG-1. You may have heard of it." The sarcasm in her voice is cutting.

"Perhaps you'd better start at the beginning, Dr. Jackson," General Hammond says.

She runs her hand through her hair, and then tugs on it. The body-language is Daniel's. Exactly.

"I'm a specialist in ancient languages and cultures," she begins, in a tone suggesting she's decided they've all lost their minds. "My primary field is linguistics. The study of languages. In 1996 Dr. Catherine Langford came to me for help in decoding some symbols on an artifact that an archaeological team had dug up in Giza. It was the cover stone for the Stargate, and her team had been working on it for two years. When we got the Stargate to work, General West put together a mission to Abydos -- Jack, Kawalski, Feretti, Brown, Freeman, Mankiewicz, Porro, a large bomb. And me, to get us back.

"We went through. We found the Abydans, who were enslaved by a _Goa'uld_ called Ra. We blew up his ship, killed him, I sent Jack, Kawalsky, and Ferreti home, I stayed behind."

"And you -- what? Stayed and married Sha're?" O'Neill asks.

The woman is on her feet so fast that everybody around the table tenses. O'Neill is regarding her, eyebrows raised, the picture of innocent inquiry.

She locks eyes with him. "Sha're was my sister. Skaara is my brother. Kasuf is my father. Yes, I stayed. I was adopted into the royal house of Abydos."

Was. Is. No one here misses the tenses she uses.

"So ... you're a princess," O'Neill says, with feigned delight.

Her hands clench into fists. She turns her back to the table and seems to address the ceiling. "A year later you threw a box of Kleenex through the gate to see if it was safe to go back to Abydos. You and Sam and Kawalski and Feretti and a commando team came through. You came because a _Goa'uld_ named Apophis had come to Cheyenne Mountain. We'd all thought Ra was the only one, but he wasn't. While I was showing you and Sammy the Abydos Cartouche Room, Apophis came to Abydos. He took Skaara for the Choosing."

Skaara. Not Sha're and Skaara.

"And then what?" O'Neill says.

"No! That's enough!" She whirls and slams her hands, palm down, on the table in front of O'Neill, glaring into his eyes. "I've told you who I am! If you _are_ SG-1, you know the rest of the story! Now what's going on?"

"Fraiser's dead," O'Neill says, his voice harsh. "She died six months ago. If you really _were_ Daniel, you'd know that."

She rears back as if he's hit her.

"She's--? You're... Don't. I just saw her. She checked us all out before we left for PHX-1138. This morning." She backs away from O'Neill, as if he's suddenly become something alien. Dangerous.

"Major Carter, has SG-1 ever been to PHX-1138?" Colonel Hammond asks. There are so many missions nobody can remember all.

"I think so, sir, but it would have been a while back. I'll check." Carter gets up and leaves the table.

The woman is standing in the middle of the room. Her arms are wrapped tightly around herself. Her head is down, her mop of light brown hair falling forward, obscuring her face. "How did she die?" she whispers.

"Doctor Fraiser went offworld to tend the victims of a Jaffa ambush," Teal'c says. "She died bravely and well."

The woman nods, a quick jerky motion. "What about Cassie?" she asks. No one answers her.

Carter is back. "Sir, we did go to PHX-1138. Two years ago. We'd been planning to return for a follow-up, but..."

"Dr. Jackson," General Hammond says to the woman standing in the middle of the room. "Was -- _your_ \-- SG-1 scheduled for any missions after PHX-1138?"

She nods again, obviously forcing herself to focus. "Yes. We're supposed to go to P3X-4C3. Tomorrow."

Everybody at the table remembers where that is. P3X-4C3 is Kelowna. Langara. Carter glances at O'Neill. He shrugs, giving permission, and she speaks. "We went to Kelowna two years ago. Daniel... died."

"He got better," O'Neill says.

#

Janet is dead -- they _say_ she's dead -- and they say PHX-1138 is two years ago.

Is this a lie, a trick, a trap? There are parallel universes. She's visited one, seen Jack go through to another. But that was through a quantum mirror, and she hasn't seen or touched one.

That she remembers.

Sammy said the parallel universes they reached through the quantum mirror should all be at the same point in time. The two she knows of were. If this is a parallel universe, she is two years behind this one's reality.

They say.

"Who is Daniel?" She forces herself to ask the question.

"Daniel Jackson is who you're pretending to be," Jack says. "And we want him back."

 _"Daniel_ Jackson?" she says, unable to comprehend the stunning enormity of the idea. "I'm supposed to be ... a guy?" No wonder Sammy had been talking about cloning. But a clone would be genetically identical. The same sex as its donor.

"Oh, I don't think you could manage that," Jack drawls. Jack at his most irritating.

"It doesn't make any sense," she says, bewildered. "If there _is_ a ... Daniel ... Jackson -- here -- then where is ... he?"

"I think we'd all like to know that," General Hammond says.

They go around the table for most of an hour, getting nowhere. All they establish is that _Daniel_ Jackson was supposed to attend a briefing three hours ago. He arrived on base as usual this morning, signed in, and -- sometime after that -- vanished. General Hammond is having the security cameras checked now to try to determine when and where he was last seen.

And she...

She remembers PHX-1138. She remembers being in the SGC, in what they say is Daniel Jackson's office. But she doesn't remember anything in between. She isn't sure how long she was in that office before Jack showed up, either. Less than half an hour?

"This isn't getting us anywhere," Jack growls, sitting forward.

They've been through every possibility -- transfer between alternate universes, shared hallucinations, intervention by advanced yet enigmatic aliens. All of them are equally possible, actually, but it doesn't explain the substitution.

"You take something, you put something in its place. You take something, you put something in its place ... guys, it almost sounds like somebody's trying to trade with you. It would be a prelude to actual trading, really. A series of formalized, ritual exchanges, to see if both sides are interested."

"Noooo..." Jack says, drawing out the word. _No, they aren't interested._

She wants to slap him. She fantasizes about slapping Jack O'Neill fairly often, actually. The thought of it now makes her heart beat faster. Under the table, she rubs the palm of her hand against her trouser leg.

"Obviously," she says, focusing on General Hammond. "So you take back your 'trade goods,' and return theirs, whoever they are. That should send a clear message."

Which is only restating their problem.

"It would perhaps be helpful if we knew what entity is attempting to negotiate with us," Teal'c says.

"I don't know what you've been doing in the last two years. But we found the remains of a Furling city on PHX-1138," she says. "At least that was my guess. I'm fairly sure that the Furlings are the ones who built the quantum mirrors. Even if yours was destroyed, they could certainly build another one if they wanted to. Which would account for..." Finding herself in a universe where there is a bizarre impossible unnecessary _male_ version of her, she doesn't say.

She isn't completely sure that the Furlings built the mirrors. In fact, it's a wild guess on her part, but one she hasn't been able to shake.

Jack and Sammy exchange looks.

"There was nothing like that on -- our -- PHX-1138, General," Sammy says. Sammy has pulled their mission file on PHX-1138. It's on the table in front of her. That, at least, is familiar.

"Still, maybe PHX-1138 is where we should start looking," General Hammond says. "I'm authorizing you to go back there and take another look around."

"I can--" she begins.

"Not you," Jack says.

The SFs take her back to her cell.

#

Three hours later, they're all back around the conference table. Only this time, the Alternate SG-1 has just gotten back -- again -- from PHX-1138 and found exactly what they did the last time: an untouched pastoral planet with no signs of life. No Furling ruins. And no Daniel Jackson.

"So if he isn't there, where is he?" Jack turns his attention to her. It's like having a loaded gun suddenly pointed at her. "Back in -- your -- universe?"

"Not necessarily, Sir." It's Sammy who answers. "Even if he could be taken there, there wouldn't be any need to. She and Daniel aren't absolutely identical on a genetic level. Entropic Cascade Failure wouldn't be a factor."

So they could both be in the same universe without her dying. Nice to know.

The similarities to -- and the differences from -- the real world are maddening. There, Jack would be just as intent on demanding answers from her. But the man staring at her would not be radiating such hostility, an anger bordering on hatred.

 _He blames me for whatever happened to Daniel Jackson._

"I'm guessing," she says. "But if this is some kind of a trade overture, they won't take their side of the transaction very far away until they're sure the terms are acceptable. So it has to be some place you can easily reach." 'Easy' being a relative term.

"'Guessing.'"

"If ... Dr. Jackson ... is right, then the differences between her reality and ours might provide a clue on how to begin looking for Daniel. I mean, whoever chose to substitute her for him in the first place must have had a reason for choosing her," Sammy says. All of them, she realizes, find it hard to speak directly to her, or include her in their conversation.

"Okay. Good. We can start with a list of everywhere she's been since she came back from Abydos," Jack says.

She doesn't for a moment think he's joking, but it doesn't occur to her until he speaks how angry she's getting. They know she's ... well, a member of the SGC at least. They know she's the counterpart of their -- male -- Danielle Jackson, and he's a member of their SG-1.

The Dream Team. The Elite Squad. The Flagship Team. Less printable names when the brass isn't listening.

But they're treating her as if it was her idea to kidnap their damned linguist and hide him -- she's sure he isn't dead, so sure it doesn't occur to her to consider that the others aren't so sure at all -- as if she is responsible for all of their problems. The enemy, to be punished.

She slouches further down into her chair. "Let me get this straight. You want me to list, off the top of my head, every planet we've -- I've -- been to in the last five years?"

"If your theory is correct, it might be the first step to finding the address the Furling -- we'll assume it's a Furling until proven otherwise -- is using as a base," Sammy says helpfully.

#

If you closed your eyes, O'Neill thinks, the Xerox sounded just like Daniel. Daniel in a really bad mood. Daniel singing soprano.

"It'd be a nice gesture on your part," O'Neill adds. He's irritated, frustrated, worried, and, frankly, doesn't see why the Xerox shouldn't reap the benefit. If she didn't exist, Daniel wouldn't be missing.

There's a long pause.

"Fine. I'll need access to your mission reports. All of them."

"Out of the question," he snaps automatically.

 _"Ja-a-a-ck..."_ Outrage, indignation, and Daniel's patented whine. But she _isn't_ Daniel. Daniel is missing. Daniel might be dead. She has no right to act as if she's Daniel.

"That's _COLONEL_ O'Neill to you."

There is a sudden shocked silence. She stares at him as if -- what? He's hurt her feelings?

"Look. _COLONEL_ O'Neill. I've been with this program as long as you have. Longer. Okay, maybe not here, but all I want to do is find my -- copy -- so I can go home. I wrote half those damned reports. I don't understand why you don't want to let me see them. If you're questioning my loyalty after five years--"

"Eight," O'Neill says, unable to stop himself. "It's been eight years."

"Fine. Fine-fine-fine." The Xerox pushes herself to her feet. "I'll be in my _jail cell_. Whenever you decide to stop being pissy, just let me know."

The SFs look at General Hammond. He nods. Right now it's a choice between wrestling her to the floor and letting her go. She stalks out, followed by two SFs.

O'Neill stares at the rest of the table.

"'Pissy'?" he finally says. "'PISSY'?"

"You might have been a little hard on her, Sir," Carter says, sounding tentative. "From her point of view, she _is_ Daniel."

 _She isn't Daniel._ Daniel's slightly-androgynous prettyboy good looks ... well, why don't they just say they come across entirely differently on an actual female?

She makes Carter look butch.

"Is there any reason to suppose that her -- loyalties and interests -- are different from those of the Dr. Jackson we know?" Hammond asks at last.

"I do not believe so, General Hammond. She _is_ Daniel Jackson. She is simply not _our_ Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says firmly.

It is not, after all, their first experience with alternate universes, or their alternate selves. Kawalsky had been just the same.

"Colonel O'Neill? Major Carter?"

"I agree, Sir." Carter's voice is neutral.

Everybody is looking at him. He doesn't really think she's going to try to take them down. Teal'c's opinion counts for a lot. But _Daniel_ has no idea of military necessities and he doesn't expect his Xerox -- if she really is -- to have any more of one.

They'll watch her like a hawk.

"Yeah, okay, sure. Give her what she wants."

He knows it's probably their best shot at getting Daniel back. If Daniel's still alive. But the deep-seated sense of annoyance refuses to fade.

#

She races the SFs to her cell. It isn't as if she doesn't know the way. Everything here in Looking Glass Land is exactly the same, except the people. She's a member of SG-1. She puts stranger things than this on her breakfast waffles.

She slams the door in the guards' faces and begins to pace.

Someone took a man named Daniel and substituted her. They are close analogues, but not identical. There are ruins on her PHX-1138 but not here. The planets are close analogues, but not identical.

Find all of the differences between Daniel's experience -- Daniel's universe -- and hers, and the differences will make up a code, a language. Deciphering languages is what she does best. Perhaps this is not about trade, but about communication.  
The trouble is, incredibly advanced aliens often overestimate one's capabilities. The only one likely to know Daniel Jackson that well is Daniel Jackson. She can't compare their differences if she doesn't know them. She'll have to concentrate on the gross differences, the one his friends know, and hope it's enough to lead her to him.

If they'll cooperate.

She wants to get out of here.

She misses _her_ friends.

#

Sammy is the one who comes, along with an airman with a dinner tray.

No. It isn't Sammy. It's someone called Major Carter, who just happens to look like her Sammy. She has to remember that.

Jack's rejection still hurts. It shouldn't. She tells herself it isn't Jack, not really. It doesn't help.

"What can I do for you, Major Carter?" she asks. The airman places the tray on the table, and departs. She hears the door being locked again.

"I thought you might be hungry, and..."

#

Daniel would look at her with exactly the same expression, when he didn't believe a word she was saying, but wasn't going to say so. She decides to be honest. Somewhere, in some unimaginable universe, there's an SG-1 missing this woman as much as Sam misses Daniel right now.

"General Hammond has authorized us to give you access to SG-1's mission files. The idea is to compare them with what you remember, and ... maybe we'll find some clues."

The woman -- _Danielle_ Jackson -- has picked up the cover off the tray and is investigating the contents. "Tuna." There's a pause. "My favorite, too." Another pause. "Major Carter, I just want to go home. Even if I am going to ... die."

#

On Kelowna, because Major Carter said that Daniel died there, and Jack -- _COLONEL O'Neill_ \-- said he got better. Which does she believe? Are both statements true? After all, _she's_ died, by all modern medical standards. _Goa'uld_ sarcophagi (among other things) brought her back.

She doesn't think a sarcophagus is involved in this case.

"It won't be too bad," Major Carter says, puzzlingly. "And it might work out differently in your universe. There _are_ differences, aren't there?"

"Back there, in the conference room, Colonel O'Neill implied that Daniel Jackson married Sha're." _Married my sister._

#

"Yes. They lived together on Abydos for a year, then Apophis came and took Sha're to host his bride Amaunet and her brother Skarra to host his son, Klorel. Apophis also conceived an _harceisis_ child with Amaunet. Daniel delivered her baby and hid it with the tribe in the deep desert. But a few months later, Amaunet returned to Abydos. She claimed the baby and executed those who had cared for him. But when Heru-Ur landed on Abydos, she gave the baby to her personal handmaid to take to Kheb. Eventually we located Kheb, where Daniel saw the baby again and realized Shifu was safe with Oma Desala, an Ascended being from whom Daniel learned how to Ascend as well."

The woman is shaking her head. "Major Carter, if Apophis were idiotic enough to father a _harceisis_ , all we would have to do is get a message to the System Lords, and no more Apophis, no more Amaunet, and no more whole royal house back to the _Goa'uld_ Queen who spawned him. As for keeping a _harceisis_ alive, or protecting it, what you've got with a _harceisis_ is essentially a _Goa'uld_ without the snake. Everything I've ever read about them in the _Tok'ra_ archives indicates that they're completely evil. Beyond redemption."

"Maybe," Carter agrees neutrally, a little offput by the stranger's un-Daniel-like cold-bloodedness. "But Daniel wanted to save Shifu, because he was Sha're's child."

"No." A flat denial. "My sister never hosted a _Goa'uld_ , Major Carter. I saved her from that. I was told that Amaunet's host was a sergeant Apophis had kidnapped from The Mountain. I don't know if it happened here too, but he took a woman from the Base in my world back with him through the Stargate."

Yes, that much is true. Sgt Hayward is still listed as 'Missing In Action,' but she's almost certainly dead.

"How did you save Sha're?" Carter asks. She doesn't want to know, but she thinks she'd better find out.

The woman sets down half a tuna sandwich untasted. "I shot her with an M-60."

#

Sha're had died, dancing on lead, the bullets bouncing harmlessly off the Serpent Guard armor of the Jaffa who held her. Teal'c's armor. She gazes directly into Major Carter's eyes, daring her to show pity or disgust.

#

Carter does neither. She's never had to shoot one of her own people on the battlefield rather than leave them alive in the hands of the enemy, but considering the enemies they all face daily, it's a decision she expects to have to make some day. Colonel O'Neill, she is sure, has made that decision in the past. It is not something you discuss.

"If she could, she'd thank you," Carter says softly. "Here, Sha're was a host for four years. Teal'c killed her as Amaunet was trying to murder Daniel."

The woman shakes her head. "We should have buried it."

There's nothing to say to that. Daniel's seen that future. Apophis brings a fleet to Earth, and everyone dies.

"But if we had, Apophis would have destroyed the Earth," Dr. Jackson says, in an uncanny echo of Carter's thoughts. "I've been to alternate universes before, but... I've usually had some idea I was going. Or that I'd gone. And I've usually been the same ... sex."

Carter smiles faintly. It's a feeble joke, but it's a joke, and right now they can all use a little humor.

"You're being moved to A3 Quarters. I could take you there now."

"No, I'd like to get started. It would be a help if I could work out of ... Daniel ... Jackson's office. I don't know what I'm looking for, but it might be there." She runs a hand through her hair, an achingly familiar gesture. Daniel's gesture.  
"Sure," Carter says. The last hour or so has been spent working out the details. "And you'll need this."

She digs in a pocket and pulls out a 'Guest' ID. Without it, Dr. Jackson will be stopped everywhere she goes. She won't even be able to get into the commissary.

"Yeah, I guess I will," Dr. Jackson says, her voice flat. She takes the pass and clips it to her pocket.

"And--" Carter mimes tearing off shoulder insignia. "You can't wear those here," she says, as gently as she can.

For a moment she thinks Dr. Jackson will refuse. But the woman reaches up and tears them off, first the SG-1 patch, then the SGC patch. She drops the embroidered disks on the desk. Carter picks them up and puts them in her pocket.

"Let's go."

#

She doesn't need to be told where Daniel's office is. though she has to wait while Carter unlocks the door. Once inside, though, she moves tentatively, as though her surroundings are strange to her, and once again Carter feels a reflexive flare of suspicion. Maybe this is some impostor, some ringer, sent to infiltrate the SGC, designed with a cover story so improbable, so downright bizarre, that they'd have no choice but to believe it. Maybe this whole thing is a scenario designed to buy somebody time to interrogate Daniel. There are things that he knows that would be valuable to their enemies -- not the alien ones, but the ones they have right here on Earth.

But she's settled herself behind his desk and turned on his computer, adjusting his chair to compensate for their difference in height while she waits for the system to come on-line. She raises her hands over the keyboard and pauses, looking at Carter.

"You know, at a moment like this the thing that's running through my mind is that this is all some kind of long elaborate hoax to gain access to my security codes and passwords, and just because I can't imagine what use they'd be to anyone with the technology to pull a masquerade like this off doesn't mean..."

She's right. Carter knows this. It was part of all of their security briefings, the possibility that any of them might be captured and interrogated, possibly with elaborate scenarios designed to convince them that they are among friends.

Hathor did that once.

In a way, it's as important for them to convince her that _they_ are real as for her to convince them that _she_ is real.

Impasse?

"Daniel has fish," Carter says.

There is a long baffled pause from the woman behind the desk.

"Koi?" she says at last.

 _'Coy?' Oh, KOI..._

"No. Tropical fish. A big tank of them."

Dr. Jackson mulls this over, staring at the screen.

"I had a dog. It was this little brown ... one of the students brought it to UCB one semester and just dumped it when she went home for the summer, so I kept it. I named it Anubis. I took it to Abydos with me."

There is a long pause.

"When they thought I wasn't going to be able to get them home after all, one of Colonel O'Neill's men shot him."

Carter's eyes go wide with shock. She doesn't know what she'd expected to hear, but it wasn't this.

"I can't imagine Colonel O'Neill..." she begins.

Would do that. Would let it happen. Would let it go unpunished.

"I... He's very--" What can she say about the man she trusts with her life?

Danielle Jackson's eyes go flat and opaque.

"Let's get down to cases here, shall we, Cupcake?" she says. Her voice has suddenly deepened, roughened, developed a strong West Texas twang.

 _General Viorst,_ Carter realizes with a sudden thrill of discovery. _That's General Viorst to the life. I worked under him at the Pentagon on the Stargate Program. He called me 'Captain Cupcake' when he thought he could get away with it. I never told anybody about that except Daniel. Not even the Colonel. And Daniel met him once, a few months after he came back from Abydos._

"I believe you," Carter says suddenly, impulsively. "I don't know how it's possible, but--"

"I don't actually care what you believe, Major Carter," Dr. Jackson interrupts her brusquely. "Right now all I'm interested in is finding out where the Furlings have stashed my _doppelganger_ so I can get back to the real SG-1."  
"Look. I'll give you the access codes," Carter says. "That way--"

"I don't need them," Dr. Jackson says, and begins to type.

#

It is several hours later when Colonel O'Neill appears in the doorway.

"Carter?"

Carter is seated at the second desk in Daniel's office, working at her laptop. She glances at her watch as she looks up. After midnight.

"Sir?"

The tension level in the room has risen sharply. She slides her eyes sideways. Dr. Jackson hasn't moved from her hunched-over-in-front-of-the-computer position, but she's frozen in place. Like a deer in headlights.

"Progress?" Colonel O'Neill asks.

A shouting match is hovering on the horizon. Carter can sense it. Daniel and the Colonel have gotten into some memorable donnybrooks. The one brewing between Colonel O'Neill and the alternate universe Dr. Jackson will be far worse if it is allowed to happen.

"Ah, Dr. Jackson doesn't have fish, Sir." Sometimes it is possible to derail an approaching storm -- to mix metaphors -- by burying the Colonel in a mountain of inessential facts. She sometimes wonders if he ever catches on to what she's doing.

"I had tuna," comes the sullen voice from behind the other computer.

Colonel O'Neill digests this set of nonsequeters. "Well, don't stay up too late. Ladies."

He withdraws. Three precisely-timed beats later the coffee cup beside Dr. Jackson's computer comes sailing through the air to shatter by the door, accompanied by a fervent phrase in Russian. Carter has heard it from Daniel. Something about the devil.

"Nice shot," Carter says.

"It was cold. Look, there's no reason for you to baby-sit me all night. I've got SFs just outside the door. There's a lot to go through here. It's going to take a while."

"How long?" Carter hates to ask, but Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond will want to know.

"A while. Look, I want to go home probably as much as you want to get rid of me. And I'm sure you want Daniel Jackson back."

She doesn't sound completely convinced.

"He's a good friend," Carter says.

"I'll get him back for you. Now go home, okay?"

#

When O'Neill signs in at 0800 the next morning, the first place he goes is Daniel's office. Daniel still isn't there, but the Xerox has apparently pulled an all-nighter. There's a tray full of thermal carafes from the commissary on a side table, and the blackboard is covered with scrawled notes in a slightly unfamiliar handwriting. She looks up as he enters. Her skin is pale with exhaustion, and there are deep blue shadows under her eyes.

"Carter?" he says.

"I sent her home around one, I think." She rubs her eyes. The gesture is Daniel's, exactly. It's disturbing. In a _Goa'uld_ way, not a Mary Steenburgen way.

"What time is it?" the Xerox asks.

"Oh-800. The start of another beautiful day at the SGC. Any progress?"

"So far, the only place I'm completely sure that you've visited that I haven't is a place called Kheb, and apparently that's related to the fact that in your world, a _Goa'uld_ called Amaunet took Sha're for a host, and in mine she didn't. And I'm guessing the Ancients aren't interested in either talking to you or trading with you."

"I'd have to say... no."

"Then I'll keep looking." She turns back to the screen, ignoring him completely.

#

She's already begun by looking for places she went to that they didn't -- and the reverse. From there she'll go on to missions out of order from what she remembers. After that, she'll look for internal differences between the missions, hers and theirs.

She's found pictures of Daniel Jackson. She's found his whole personnel file, actually.

It's like looking at herself, but different. They look like fraternal twins -- closer, really -- but of course men always have the advantage. Nobody expects men to wear lipstick and mascara, for example. Or high heels and pantyhose. So he looks great. And she looks like... a geek.

She grits her teeth. Nobody hired her for her looks. They hired her because she could read pre-Dynastic Egyptian.

His hair is shorter than hers. But in the earliest photos, the ones taken when Catherine hired him, he is wearing his hair the same way she is now.

There are sound files; his recorded mission notes. His voice is deeper, of course. But he _sounds_ like her, too. Carefully neutral Midlantic vowels, over a faint blurred sound that speaks of a dozen languages learned by the age of eight. As a result, his English -- their English -- is sometimes fussily overprecise.

He _did_ die on Kelowna.

They've given her everything she asked for, so she has access to the mission reports that lie in her 'future' -- in fact, to all of the mission reports of every member of SG-1 up to the present day. He went to Kelowna. He died. He became an Ascended Being.

She's familiar with the Ancients. Builders of the Stargates, Elder Race, once-inhabitants of Earth, creators of a maddeningly subtle and complex language. They even found the remains of an Ancient outpost in Antarctica, so she's had something to work with.

Daniel Jackson contracted terminal radiation poisoning on Kelowna, and died. Because he met Oma Desala on Kheb, he was offered the chance to Ascend, a condition from which he later returned -- Descended?

So, in essence, he's cheated Death.

She's never been to Kheb. When she goes home, her next mission is to Kelowna.

It's highly unlikely anybody is going to offer her the opportunity to Ascend if she is also exposed to a lethal amount of _naquaadriah_ radiation there.

"Better not go to Kelowna, then," she says aloud.

But while this is a fascinating side-trip, it isn't getting anybody any closer to finding out where Daniel Jackson is.

#

She can't focus on the screen. She can't think straight. She looks down at her watch and can't make out the numbers, with or without her glasses.

She needs food and sleep.

She leaves her -- no, _Daniel's_ , -- office, heading for the commissary. She really ought to take all their carafes back, but right now she's pretty sure she'd drop them. She's trying to make out when she ate last, or slept. It's hard, because of the transition.

 _I got up, showered, drove to The Mountain, had breakfast, briefed, Janet checked us out, we went through to PHX-1138..._

Janet is dead.

Her eyes fill with tears. Exhaustion. _Stupid._

But if she doesn't get home, she'll never see Janet -- or Jack, or Sammy, or Teal'c -- again.

She leans against the wall.

"Doctor Jackson, are you well?"

"Teal'c." She blinks at him. She can't get used to the ... hair. Acculturation, she supposes. "I'm just tired."

"May I assist you?"

He sounds the same. Of all of them, he treats her the same. She feels like throwing herself into his arms and bursting into tears.

Yes, she's tired.

"I'm just going down to the commissary."

"I will accompany you."

He waits for her to stand up straight again.

"Have you made any progress in your researches?" Teal'c asks, as they walk.

"Not really. I have questions. Nobody to ask, though."

"Perhaps you could ask me, Doctor Jackson. Daniel Jackson often told me that it helped him to ask questions aloud."

"Right. Yeah." _I said that_. "Well, okay, why isn't this an even swap?"

"I do not understand. You are both Daniel Jackson."

She knows Major Carter believes it, but Teal'c is the first one who has actually said it. It makes her feel better, even though he should have said that they're both Danielle Jackson. She's the original. Daniel is the bizarre copy.

"Yes, but- Okay. Why is he two years older than I am? Why aren't we from the same point in time? Why didn't we find another mirror on PHX-1138? Why didn't you?"

Why doesn't she remember anything clearly after standing in the middle of the ruined Furling city? She was there. Then she was ... here.

Teal'c cocks his head. "I do not know, Doctor Jackson."

"Right."

#

Teal'c sits with her while she eats. The Air Force cuisine is exactly the same, which is somehow soothing. She loads up on carbs: banana pudding, spaghetti piled on toast. The food gives her a burst of energy that she knows will be brief. She's going to crash soon.

"Major Carter said I'd been assigned A3 Quarters, but I don't know which ones," she says.

"I am aware," Teal'c says, inclining his head magisterially. "I will conduct you."

#

She feels a sense of relief as the door closes behind her, partly from the fact that she's been given A3 quarters -- visiting guest accommodations -- another indication that General Hammond believes at least some of what she's told him.

Also, A3s have an attached bath. She drops her clothes in a heap in the middle of the bathroom and stands under the hot water in the shower until it numbs her.

There are clothes in the drawers, close to her size. She pulls on sweatpants and a t-shirt and falls into bed.

#

Sometime later she awakes, sitting bolt upright. A moment ago she was dreaming, but she can't recall her dream.

But she has the answer to one of her questions. They aren't from the same point in time because there is no contemporary 'her' to exchange. She doesn't want to believe it, but it's logical.

Daniel Jackson disappeared now because Now is when the Furlings -- for convenience, she's going to call the architects of their misfortune the Furlings until proven otherwise -- want to open a dialogue with this SGC. But they didn't have a contemporary her to offer in exchange, because there isn't one.

Or perhaps _her_ universe is the one in which the Furlings are opening negotiations, and they were showing her her own future so that she could change it. Because if she doesn't...

She stumbles out of bed, looking for pen and paper to make notes. Along the way, she knocks something off a desk. A card-key and a slip of paper. Someone has been in here while she slept.

 _"Thought you might need this. Maj. Carter."_

It's a key to Daniel's office.

#

Her days become a nightmare of work. It's like the very beginning, when she was trying to crack the coverstone, only she doesn't even have something tangible to try to decipher. She's alone most of the time; they're trying not to pull the other SG teams into this -- not that it would help; they know even less here than they do back in her universe about the Furlings, which convinces her that the Furlings are the key.

They've never cracked the Furling language.

They visited a Furling city on PHX-1138 -- which doesn't exist here -- and she was taken. Out of her own place and time.

She isn't finding anything that will help.

#

Major Carter is approaching the problem from a technical angle, trying to trace energy signatures through the Stargate here and on PHX-1138 to see if someone has taken Daniel through it, and where, and when. It's a slightly more potentially-fruitful line of inquiry than the one she's told Colonel O'Neill is pursuing, which is to simply check every hospital, jail, and madhouse within a thousand miles, in addition to pressuring his contacts in the various alphabet agencies. From what Major Carter doesn't say, Danielle gathers he's being a lot less diplomatic than General Hammond has to be in his inquiries.

For Jack O'Neill, that's saying a lot.

Thinking of that is the one bright spot in her days. She works twenty hours out of the twenty-four. Some days she doesn't even bother to leave the office; she's brought blankets and a pillow in from the A3 and catnaps under her -- _Daniel's --_ desk.

The days blur together in a surreal fashion. She's sure there's an answer somewhere here amid the hundreds of facts she now has at her disposal.

She can't find it.

#

"Jack! Colonel! _O'Neill!_ We have to go back to PHX-1138 and we have to go _now!_ Right now! We might already be too late! Oh, god, what time is it?"

She comes barreling into his office looking completely demented, her arms full of books, and, astonishingly, a calendar. He hasn't seen her for two days. She looks as if she hasn't slept in three.

"It's 1130-hundred."

"No! The _date!"_

"Ah... March 21st?"

"Not here! _There!_ You were just there! When is it _there?"_

She looks like she's going to have a complete meltdown right in his doorway. She's trying to gesture, to explain, and all that happens is that her armful of books goes flying. She makes a sound like a cat somebody's stepped on.

"Look, Doctor... Jackson--" He'll never get used to calling her that.

"He's there! The city's there! Don't you see? You went at the wrong time! God-god-god, I finally found it! We went in the summer -- you went in the fall -- it's only there in the summer because of what they are but if it's summer there now it will be there now you've got to go back there'll be a cave I'm sure there'll be a cave it's underground don't you see--"

"Sit. Down."

He walks over to her, stepping over the books, and takes her by the shoulders. He drags her over to the nearest chair and pushes until she sits.

"We checked PHX-1138," he reminds her, picking up the phone.

"Wrong time," she says again, bouncing out of the chair to gather up her books.

Daniel's books.

"Sit," he says, punching Carter's extension.

"It has to be that because there aren't any other things that match. They'd leave us a clear indication, because that's the way their minds work and that's where I was it's not about Kelowna at all; it's about PHX-1138. It's about the Furlings. And he'll be there because this is an overture, a dialogue--" She's ignoring him, picking up the books, but she's dropping as many as she gathers.

"Sit _down!"_ It's the voice that has stopped hardened Black Ops commandos in their tracks, and it finally gets through to her. She clutches the books in her hands to her chest and goes back to the chair.

"Sir?"

Carter heard that. He can tell.

"Carter, we need to know what time of year it is on PHX-1138 right now. Is there any way to find that out? Summer, winter, shopping days till Christmas?"

"Midsummer," the Xerox says, almost whispering. "It has to be Midsummer. It _has_ to."

"I can ask General Hammond to send a MALP through. We should be able to get an idea," Carter says. "It seemed like summer when we went, though."

"Apparently we need to know the date. See what you can do."

He hangs up the phone.

"Now. You want to explain?"

"We have to go there. If we don't go, they'll think we -- you -- approve the exchange. And we have to go when we can get there."

She isn't making a lot of sense. But then, half the time Daniel doesn't make a lot of sense either, and he's usually right.

"The short version? With little words?"

She takes a deep breath.

"On Earth, there are legends of places that are only visible -- accessible -- on certain days of the year. Tir Na Og. The Fairy Hills."

"Brigadoon?" O'Neill suggests.

That wins him a pained smile, but it's better than the potential hysterics of a moment before. He's seen Daniel work himself to the edge of a nervous collapse more than once over a problem that's impossible to solve, solving it. He recognizes the signs.  
"Brigadoon," she agrees. "Okay. _We_ went to PHX-1138 in summer -- its summer. Your original visit was in its autumn. The usual time for invisible places to become -- accessible -- is Midsummer."

"We were back there six days ago. Carter says it was summer. We didn't see any invisible city." He hates to push, but he has to.

"The timing has to be ... close. And I don't think you're looking for surface ruins actually. They're only a marker. They might not even be there -- well, they aren't, are they?. I think you're looking for an entrance to an underground complex of some kind. It would be easy to miss."

"And you know this -- how?"

"Because there aren't any other possibilities. We've gone on the same missions, visited the same places, done the same things, up to P3X-4C3 -- I died on Kelowna, obviously, which is why I'm two years behind, and that's what makes PHX-1138 the obvious--"

"Whoa! Wait! Back up! What do you mean you _died_ on Kelowna? You haven't been to Kelowna yet. You said so."

"No. But we we're going there next. If I go back to where I left. If we go there next... What am I going to do, Colonel? Ascend?" She shakes her head. "I've never been to Kheb."

"Yeah... Well... Don't go to Kelowna."

She isn't listening.

"But we have to go _now!_ Look, everything I know about them says that the Furlings communicate by the ritual presentation of symbolic tableaux -- visual riddles -- which is what this has to be. You have to see--"

Carter steps into the office. "They're prepping the MALP now, Sir." She looks from Colonel O'Neill to Dr. Jackson, and frowns inquiringly.

"There's an invisible city on PHX-1138," O'Neill says helpfully.

Dr. Jackson puts her head in her hands. "We have to go _now,"_ she mutters through her fingers.

#

Her explanation to General Hammond boils down to 'he has to be there because I can't think of anywhere else to look,' but SG-1 backs her up.

Colonel O'Neill backs her up.

By the time she's finished her explanation, the MALP is sending back telemetry. Cross-checking it with the records from their two previous visits, they can be sure of the season -- summer -- and that the days are still getting longer, which implies it's getting closer to Midsummer, at least -- but not much else.

General Hammond authorizes them to proceed.

#

"I have to go with you," she says, as they rise from the table.

Colonel O'Neill looks at her, but this time he's just waiting. _Give me a good reason,_ his expression says.

"If they're trading, you have to give them back what they've offered you in order to get back what they've taken. And I want to go home."

"Are you sure that's what's going to happen?" General Hammond asks skeptically.

"I'm sure you won't get him back unless I'm along," she says. It's the truth.

Colonel O'Neill nods.

#

Janet would never okay her to go offworld in the condition she's in. Brightman doesn't want to let her go either, but the trouble is, the time they have to locate something that may only exist in Dani's imagination is short. They can't wait. Hammond overrules Brightman.

She goes to get her gear.

The others are already in the gear-up room by the time she arrives, her arms filled with new issue from Stores to replace items lost a universe away. They've had to struggle to come up with her sizes. Daniel's backpack was in his office, and she's filled it with what she thinks she'll need.

It makes her late.

She looks around at the row of lockers automatically, realizing she's searching for the one with her name on it.

It's there. _Dr. D. Jackson._ But it's not hers.

"Are you going to be all right?" Major Carter asks her in a low voice.

She glances up, but Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c are at the other end of the room, checking each other's gear.

"Fine," she says briefly. She drops an armload of equipment on the bench and begins to gear.

What is Daniel Jackson like? If they find him, she'll know. She's seen pictures and video of him. She's heard his voice. She's seen him reflected in the faces of his friends.

She thinks he's ... soft, actually. It's the word she'd use to describe him. He was unemployed and homeless when Catherine found him, an academic laughingstock. At least she'd been a TA. He takes crazy chances for strangers. She doesn't know whether she envies him, or despises him.

She re-laces her boots, and clips her -- his -- backpack into place on her vest. Carter clears her throat.

"You'll probably need these. In case you go back."

She turns around. Carter is holding out her shoulder patches. SGC. SG-1.

She takes them and presses them into place.

#

The four of them go through the Gate. Heat washes over her the moment she steps through. She smells flowers, the scent of grass and trees. Smell is the oldest and most evocative sense; suddenly it's a week ago and everything's fine.

One look at Colonel O'Neill's face convinces her this isn't true.

"I think we should start by going back to the ruins ... that aren't there," she says. Her voice is flat with exhaustion. He isn't going to take her suggestion, and she has nothing more to give.

"And then?" Colonel O'Neill asks, his voice neutral.

"Look around?"

"Lead the way."

#

It takes her a while to find the place where the ruins had been. She doesn't have her notes, her sketches, the tape she'd shot ... nothing that would guide her to the right area except her memory.

And why is that? She'd had the contents of her pockets when she'd arrived, after all -- miscellaneous things that they took away from her when they searched her, including an All Access keycard, two loose 9mm bullets, three pens, and half a candy bar. If she'd just come through the Gate from here, her pockets should have been full of scraps of paper with worknotes in addition to everything else. But they hadn't been. Because she hadn't come straight to the wrong SGC from here. Something had happened in between.

Hadn't it?

 _Find Dr. Daniel Jackson. Then worry about that later, when you're home and Jack can laugh at you._

When they reach the city -- there's no city here, or any trace there's ever been one, but she's positive she's in the right place -- she takes off her pack. Rummaging through its contents, she locates a ball of kite string and a tiny bar-magnet. As the others watch in silent interest, she ties the magnet to the string and pays out a four-foot length. The magnet circles, hanging straight down at the end of the string, then pulls strongly in one direction, until it's hanging a solid fifteen degrees out of true. She feels a surge of relief bordering on faintness. This is the first proof she's had that her theory is right.

"High tech," O'Neill comments to Carter.

"Magnetic fields," Dani says. "If the Furlings are actually responsible for the phenomena I believe that they are, it's characterized by strong electromagnetic fields."

"But we can track that," Carter says excitedly. She digs in her own pack, pulling out an EM meter. Dani clips her pack back into place one-handed.

The magnet continues to hang, angled in space.

"It's dead," Carter says disgustedly, a moment later.

All of their electrical equipment -- everything that runs on batteries, anything electronic or magnetic -- is completely dead. O'Neill checks their radios, which don't work.

"We must be within the area of affect," Dani says.

"So that's good?" O'Neill asks.

It means she's right. It means he's here. She nods and walks off, coiling up the string. Every few paces she stops and tries the magnet again. It continues to lead them in the same direction.

"Nice trick," Colonel O'Neill says, coming up to her.

It may simply be that she's gotten so little sleep lately, but she can hear the sudden undercurrent of unvoiced suspicion and distrust in his voice. Why didn't she tell them their equipment wouldn't work here? Is she leading them into a trap? Is this all an elaborate charade? She could be Other-Daniel and still be a traitor. She knows it's not something the Colonel can afford to rule out. Stranger things have happened.

"You can try it yourself. It will work for anyone." She offers him the string and magnet. "I wasn't sure we'd find the magnetic anomaly." Actually, she didn't remember it at all until she arrived. She hurries on, trying to explain everything. "It's a good sign. I think it means the doorway will be there. I think the doorway must be open to be affecting the electric equipment so strongly." But she should have known whether it would or wouldn't be here from her last trip here. Sammy was the one who found it then; she remembers now. She should have warned them.

She doesn't remember.

She doesn't remember anything about PHX-1138 after finding the ruins of the city.

She didn't remember this.

She brought the magnet and the string without remembering why she'd need them until she got here.

She glances up into his face, knowing he sees realization and horror in equal measures.

Is she a trap after all?

"Are we there yet?" O'Neill asks blandly.

The string slips out of her fingers. The magnet goes flying into the distance. The ball of string bounces as it unrolls, unspooling string.

They follow the string.

#

There's an opening in the side of a hill. It looks so much like a cave it looks fake, like something on a soundstage. Her string-and-magnet has disappeared into the opening, leaving the end of the string outside. She's about to walk into the cave when O'Neill puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Now, now. Is that the way we behave at home? Carter, let's go."

Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter head into the cave first. She follows them. Teal'c brings up the rear. Inside the complex there is power. Light. They try their radios again. Now the equipment works. The Colonel sighs in exasperation. It's a good thing, but she knows he hates mysteries.

The complex is ... magnificent. It looks as if the builders have just stepped away moments before. She can see echoes of the shapes of the ruined city here. But she can't take pictures, can't record notes. She stops and stares, trying to etch every detail into her memory. Teal'c urges her gently forward, forcing her to catch up with the others.

The ceiling is engraved with constellations. The City Under The Summer Stars.

The corridors are curved, sections of arc that intersect, not quite a spiral, leading them toward a center. The design allows for a number of radiating dead-end corridors as well, a combination of sunburst and spiral motifs, she thinks. If she could only map it properly.

In the center they find the Stargate.

The MALP is sitting in front of it.

"Good," she says, walking up to the MALP before anyone can stop her. It's theirs -- the other SG-1's -- at any rate.

She looks at the other three. "They moved the Stargate," she says quietly. In awe. "They're talking to us now."

"Okay, Doc, now what?"

Jack -- her Jack -- called her that on Abydos. She takes a deep quick breath.

"We need to find Daniel Jackson. They'll want to talk more wherever he is. There will be ... things like riddles."

"But not riddles?" Colonel O'Neill asks, as if trying to make sure.

She grabs her hair in exasperation. There's too much to explain, and no time.

"Fan out," he says. "Search. Doc, you're with me."

#

"Daniel!" O'Neill shouts. "Daniel!" In the distance, she hears Carter's and Teal'c's voices as well, shouting Daniel's name.

"I don't think he can answer, Colonel," she says.

O'Neill rounds on her as if she's suggested Daniel Jackson is being tortured. She raises her hands in the universal gesture of peace, realizing that now is not the time to explain the Legend of King Arthur, Sleeping Knights, and Arthur Come Again.

"I think he's been placed in some sort of suspended state," she says. "It should be easy to awaken him, because this exchange has got to be designed to be terminated from our side and oh my god--"

She starts forward. O'Neill grabs her.

"No -- Jack -- look -- _hieroglyphs!"_ In her excitement she forgets, and calls him by name.

He lets go. She runs to the wall and runs her hands over the delicate incised carvings. "They don't belong here," she says, delighted by the paradox. "They don't belong here at all. We need to look for more."

She heads off down a side passage. The hieroglyphs tell her where to go. Of course. If they're trading, they have to trade her back and _she_ can read them.

She can go home.

"Come on!" she calls, starting to run. She hears the Colonel swear as he follows her, calling over the radio for the others to close up.

The corridors are all sections of arc, and meet at nothing like right angles. There are more hieroglyphs etched into the walls, just at her eye-level. She reaches a doorway unlike any of the others, and steps through. And stops, staring.

It looks like a giant snow globe, actually, down to the fact that it's standing on an ornate pedestal. Spherical, the same shade of purple that flint glass turns in the desert sun. Large enough that it can hold a person standing upright in the middle.

Daniel Jackson stands inside. He looks as if he's asleep.

Colonel O'Neill walks up to the edge of the globe and taps it experimentally. A sheen of lightning moves across its surface, and there is a crackling sound. It is some kind of energy field, not glass.

Daniel Jackson doesn't respond.

"Carter, Teal'c. We've found him," the Colonel says into his radio. He looks at her.

"They wouldn't lead us to him if he weren't alive," she says, though the man inside the globe looks like a wax statue and not a living man. "This is ... a form of communication."

"One of your riddles," the Colonel says dubiously.

With an effort, she stops herself before she starts explaining again about symbolic presentation of objects in Furling communication. They're only theories. The Furlings themselves have been highly elusive. She has little to go on: samples of writing she can't decipher, some artifacts she can't definitely attribute, some sites she isn't entirely sure about. None of it will get Daniel Jackson out of that snow globe.

She looks around the chamber, but sees little that might help. The entrance seems as if it can be closed with a door -- she sees what looks like a triggering mechanism -- and opulent glittering desirable objects set out on tables and standing in corners. The whole room is filled with ... loot.

No. _Objets d'art_.

Dr. Daniel Jackson is an _objet d'art_.

What if -- oh, god, what if the Furlings can't tell the difference between her and Daniel Jackson? What if they thought they were leaving a copy that would fool his friends?

Why is he the one they took, and she the one they moved?

She walks around the globe, looking for writing, any instructions that will tell her how to open it. There's nothing. A few minutes later, Major Carter and Teal'c arrive.

Major Carter walks up to the globe, touches it as the Colonel did, with the same result. Carter kneels down to examine the base, looking for something that will open into a control panel, and finds nothing.

"Some kind of force-field, Sir," she says. "Probably a stasis bubble."

"Can you open it?" the Colonel asks.

Carter glances around the room, then at Dani.

Dani shakes her head. "Even if it has an instruction book, I won't be able to read it," she admits reluctantly. "But considering the hieroglyphs, there might be something about it in one of the other chambers that I _can_ read."  
"It looks like we can move it, Sir. If we can get it back to the SGC I might have a better chance of figuring it out."

"Carter, phone home and get what you need to move it. Teal'c, Doc, let's take a look around and see if we find anything useful."

They move out of the chamber.

She follows the Colonel until his attention is on the contents of one of the other chambers, then doubles back.

Removing the globe is a bad idea.

They have to _trade._

Closing the door is easy -- how many ways are there to close a door, anyway? She can't find the lock, but she picks up a statue -- she can't identify the culture, but it's heavy and it's metal -- and smashes the mechanism. Sparks fly, and the panel goes dark.

That should buy her a little time.

She goes back to the bubble, unclipping her pack and dropping it to the floor.

"Hi, Daniel," she says aloud. "I'm Danielle." She places her hand against the bubble's curved surface.

She expects the same light-show the other two got, but it doesn't happen. Instead, the surface is warm and rubbery beneath her hand. She pushes and it gives.

She shoves.

There's a flash of light. She's flung backward as violently as if she'd run full-tilt into a _Goa'uld_ force-shield. She flies through the air, and hits the floor hard, sliding.

She has a pounding headache.

The blank spot in her memories is gone.

Images cascade through her mind, like a movie run fast-forward.

#

 _"I need a Threat Assessment, Doc. Is this safe to take back to the SGC or not?"_

 _"Jack, I didn't spend my childhood playing with guns. I don't even know what a Threat Assessment is. You have to give me more than that."_

 _"'Give you more.' What the hell does that mean?"_

 _"Teach me."_

#

 _"Indiana... Dani... You do know we're -- dying -- down there?"_

#

 _"So this whole friendship thing we've been working on in the past few years is..."_

#

 _"In all the time you were ... looping ... were you ever tempted to do something crazy? Jack?"_

#

 _"Come on kids. Nothing more to see here on beautiful PHX-1138. Let's go home."_

 _"But, Jack, I want to--"_

 _"Indiana. Now?"_

#

She sits up.

Tomorrow is yesterday.

She remembers coming back from PHX-1138, walking back into her own SGC. The debriefing. They'd all gone out that night to O'Malley's. Sammy had coaxed her into shooting a few games of pool, and -- of course -- beat her thoroughly. They'd all gone home. She'd come to work the next day and been briefed for Kelowna, a post-industrial planet that had recently re-discovered its Stargate and was interested in opening diplomatic relations with Earth. They'd been sent in to do a meet'n'greet so that SG-9 would have something to work with when they settled in to the inevitable treaty negotiations.

They'd gone to Kelowna.

"No," she whispers, curling into a small ball on the floor.

On Day Two, Sam had gone off to see the big machines, Jack and Teal'c had been off doing something with the Kelownan leaders, and she had been spending more time with a Kelownan attaché; named Jonas Quinn. The Kelownans were creating bombs in the name of peace, so they said, and she was trying to explain to Jonas what an incredibly stupid idea that was.

Jack and Sammy and Teal'c are dead.

They're all dead.

 _She's_ dead.

That's why she's here.

She could be removed from her own universe without changing anything there because she's dead.

And Jack is dead.

She remembers the feel of Jonas Quinn's body on top of her, holding her down. Her fury and desperation. The feel of the radiation, like strong sunlight. Knowing it's too late to stop the chain reaction that in moments will level all of Kelowna City in a _naquaadriah_ -fed nuclear explosion.

The Furling steps out of nothingness.

He throws Jonas aside, lifts her from the floor as if she weighs nothing.

Things happen that are simply too _alien_ for her mind to retain.

And then she is standing in Daniel Jackson's office, in another world.

Suddenly there is a hammering at the door behind her.

"Doc! Jackson! _Open this door!"_

She gets slowly to her feet, ignoring the Colonel.

All dead, and she'll be dead in seconds once she's returned to the place she was removed from. Kelowna City will be radioactive for a hundred thousand years.

The hammering on the door gets louder. She suspects the Colonel is kicking it.

Time to wake the Sleeping Prince. This is a mission. Jack would expect her to complete it, no matter what.

She approaches the bubble again. This time, when she touches it, she moves slowly, pointing her fingers and trying to sink them beneath the bubble's surface. Her hand eases through. No shock comes.

Next, her arm. The slow stately motions are like dancing underwater. The projections on the ornate pedestal serve as steps, and she climbs up. She slides her foot through the wall of the bubble. It's tricky; there's little space to stand inside, and she's not sure what will happen if her head goes through.

The bubble is buzzing now, a persistent sound like badly-tuned fluorescent bulbs or the resting note of a mosquito zapper. She can touch Daniel Jackson's jacket now -- the material feels waxy, unlike itself -- but she can't shift him. He's as immobile as if he were a statue fixed to the floor of the globe. She clings to him to brace herself.

She slides her foot as far over inside the bubble as she can, and starts shoving her other leg into the globe. She's twisted around backward by the position, and can see the door. There's a black line at the edge. They're forcing it open. They have the C4 to blow it, but they won't risk damaging the stasis bubble. Still, she doesn't have much time. She has to hurry.

But if she moves any faster, the globe will only throw her out again. She thinks that when they're both inside it may trigger the appearance of the Furlings. Or the globe might collapse. It sounds as if it's going to do that. The buzzing has taken on a desperate note.

And if she doesn't fall into a stasis state herself once she's inside, she can try to push Daniel Jackson out again. She'll have the leverage then.

At last only her head and one arm are outside. She's wrapped herself around Daniel Jackson as much as she can. It's now or never. She pulls her head inside. Slowly. The world is purple and buzzes. Everything outside is distorted past recognition.

She can't breathe.

She grabs at Daniel Jackson with her free hand. The movement is too fast for the globe's stasis field. It explodes, flinging them both free.

She scrabbles across the floor on hands and knees toward where she thinks he might be almost before she's stopped sliding; still stunned and more than half-dazed, but desperate to know that he's alive. Insanely, her glasses have remained in place through all of this.

"Ow," she hears. "You know, when I find out what's actually going on I really don't think I'm going to like the explanation much." The voice is calm, rueful, matter-of-fact. She pushes her hair out of her eyes. He's sitting up, looking around for his glasses. She sees them.

The floor shakes. It isn't the first tremor, actually, but it's the first one she can't pretend is an illusion, a hallucination, or her own body shaking.

"You were kidnapped by aliens. We've been looking for you for over a week." She hands him his glasses.

"Ah... 'we'?" He settles his glasses on his nose and peers at her.

"SG-1."

 _"Daniel?"_ Colonel O'Neill shouts through the door. They've opened a gap of several inches now, but the door isn't going anywhere soon, and the bad news is that the tremors are increasing in intensity and frequency. She's gotten Daniel Jackson out of the bubble and trapped them both in a collapsing underground complex.

"Jack? I was gone for a week and you replaced me?" Daniel goes over to the door and peers through the gap.

"Long story. Look, can you get the door open?"

"No, somebody's smashed the lock mechanism on this side. Jack, what's going on?"

Dust is sifting down from the ceiling now, fine as flour. The next tremor makes her stagger as she gets to her feet.

"Get back. I'm going to blow it."

Daniel Jackson runs back to her, putting an arm around her shoulders to hurry her to the far side of the room, using the base of the globe -- all that's left now -- for cover. Almost before they get there, an explosion rocks the room.

The explosion goes on and on, a long sickening shimmy, and she knows it isn't just the C4, that the complex is going now, all the way. Smoke and dust fill the air, and she hears Colonel O'Neill shouting.

 _"Daniel!"_

"Over here!" He takes several steps toward the door before he realizes she isn't following.

He stops and looks back at her. He just looks ... confused. He knows from her uniform she's SGC. He can't imagine she'd just stand here. And if she does, if she delays his escape, he'll die.

She stumbles forward. It's the last thing she wants to do. SG-1 is dead.

The Colonel appears through the smoke. He grabs Daniel and shoves him through the door. "Follow Teal'c! Get to the Gate!" Then he grabs her arm and doesn't let go.

They head at a dead run for the Gate. Around them, the Furling complex is ... dissolving. Side passages are sliding into the earth, and cracks are opening everywhere. The destruction is moving fast.

She stumbles keeping up with the Colonel, but he doesn't slow down at all. She doesn't know how she manages to keep her feet. She knows she's going to have bruises. Undoubtedly for the rest of her life.

The air is thick as mist and she can't see, can barely breathe. One wrong turn and they will be lost in the labyrinth, and die. But then the blue glow of the active wormhole lights the fog ahead. Cracks are opening in the ceiling and floor of the main chamber, and the Gate could disappear into one of them at any moment.

Teal'c is standing at the edge of the Gate, waiting.

"Go!" the Colonel shouts, but Teal'c waits until they're on the platform itself before stepping through. The Colonel shoves her through ahead of him. There's a long moment of ... disruption ... and they're home.

No.

Not her home.

Behind her, the wormhole destabilizes with a soft sigh. Just at the edge of the Safe Zone, Major Carter and Daniel Jackson are standing, waiting for them..

"Welcome home, SG-1," General Hammond says. "I'm glad you were able to find Dr. Jackson."

"Yeah. He was in a ... soap bubble."

"Stasis bubble," Carter supplies.

"But what I want to know is, why is _she_ still here? Because we were supposed to, you know, swap, and all we ended up doing was blowing up their house," O'Neill continues.

The General doesn't look very happy about it. Well, she isn't happy either.

"Wait-wait-wait," Daniel Jackson says. "Will somebody tell me what's going on? Where have I been? How did I get there? And who is..."

Colonel O'Neill grins with innocent malice. "Dr. Daniel Jackson, meet ... Dr. Danielle Jackson."

"Wait. She's -- you're -- me?" He looks from her face to the Colonel's, uncertain of whether or not this is an elaborate joke.

She nods.

"She doesn't have a problem with Temporal ... Castanets," the Colonel clarifies.

"Dr. Jackson is from SG-1 in a parallel universe that seems to run about two years behind ours," Carter says. "Her last mission had been to PHX-1138, where we found you. And because she's female -- and therefore genetically distinct from you -- Entropic Cascade Failure doesn't affect her, which is probably why she was chosen for the transfer. Her theory is that the Furlings were attempting to open communication with us by exchanging the two of you," Major Carter says.

"The Furlings have established communication with us? But that's--" Daniel Jackson seems to notice his clothes and his surroundings for the first time. He attempts to brush rock dust from his fatigues without success. "--dusty."

"SG-1, Dr. Jackson, why don't you go get cleaned up? We'll do a full debriefing in one hour," General Hammond says.

She doesn't know why the trade didn't happen. She doesn't know whether or not to tell them about remembering Kelowna. From the looks the Colonel is giving her right now, he'd be more than happy to send her there if he could. But he doesn't say anything.

They're leaving the Gate Room when the warning klaxons sound.

"Unscheduled Offworld Activation!"

"Close the iris!" the General orders.

It doesn't help. The creature walks right through it. The Gate Room fills with armed SFs.

It's definitely alien. Taller than a human -- seven, perhaps seven and a half feet tall -- slender as an Art Deco drawing. Its height and etiolation, she realizes, are the only things that are clearly defined about it: no matter how hard she tries to concentrate on the details of its features and its dress, they seem to constantly be changing, or else it's as if she can't look at them directly.

"Wait! Wait!" she cries. "General! It's the Furling!"

It smiles and inclines its head graciously. Somehow she can tell that, even though she can't make out its features. It has every face and none, and they're all beautiful.

Enchanting, in fact.

She takes a step forward. The Colonel puts a hand on her arm, pulling her back. It's right over the fresh bruise, and the sudden pain jars her to her senses.

Enchanting. Dangerous.

She looks away from the Furling's face.

"Hold your fire," the General says. "I'm General Hammond. Welcome to the SGC."

"We are welcomed," the Furling answers. "Danielle Jackson, you have solved our riddle. Now we will speak to your master and bring him gifts. And we will speak with those who have aided you here as well, once the pattern is completed. Perhaps we will also bring them gifts. Now come. We are prepared to return you to the place from which I removed you to play your part in this pattern." The Furling holds out its hand.

She shrugs out from under the Colonel's hand and takes a step forward.

"Wait." It's Daniel Jackson. "Just where is that, exactly?"

The Furling inclines its head. "You wish to play again. Very well. Danielle Jackson returns to Kelowna."

"You told me you hadn't been there yet," Colonel O'Neill says to her under his breath.

"I ... forgot." It's the truth, and it feels like a lie.

"Nice place?"

She blinks hard and turns away.

"Wait. You can't do that. If she's been gone a week, what happened there while she was gone?"

"Do you forbid me to take her?" the Furling asks.

"No!" She takes another step forward. Daniel Jackson lunges forward and drags her back. She tugs against him. His grip is surprisingly strong.

"Yes! Yes I do! You can't take her back to Kelowna!"

"Yes he can! Daniel, let go of me! I'm going to be--" She can't manage the lie.

"There's a bomb on Kelowna," Daniel Jackson says to her, his voice urgent. "If you aren't there to stop it, it's going to explode and take half the city with it--"

"Let me _GO!"_ The Furling is waiting.

"Tell her, Jack!"

"She knows, Daniel." The Colonel's voice is quiet.

"She will be returned to the time and place from which she was taken. Only thus can the pattern can be completed satisfactorily."

"Send her back to her SGC instead!" Daniel demands.

"Danielle Jackson must accompany me to her place of origin to complete the pattern. If she does not, communication is impossible," the Furling says.

"But you can't take her back to Kelowna! I won't let you just kill her!" Daniel insists.

She's pulling at him now with all her strength. She's exhausted and her head is spinning. She breaks free for an instant, but Daniel drags her back against his chest, his arms pinning hers to her sides. She kicks back and misses.

She has to make him let her go.

"Stop it! Let me go! I won't die on Kelowna! I've already died there! I killed SG-1 on Kelowna because I wasn't good enough!"

His grip loosens enough for her to twist in his arms. She can get free in another moment. She has to.

Tears are running down her face now, fogging her glasses, but it's not enough to keep her from seeing the look of horror on her _doppelganger's_ face, as if she's opened a door to his own private hell _. Not good enough. Never good enough._

Behind the closed iris, there is the sudden glow as the Stargate re-engages.

"If you will not complete the pattern satisfactorily, I will not speak to you until you do."

She finally breaks his hold, but it's too late. The Furling has vanished back through the iris before she has taken more than a few steps.

#

He's kept her from going home. She turns back to him and shoves with all her strength. Not the most elegant move, but he isn't expecting it and he goes down hard. She's moving on instinct, reaching for the sidearm she isn't wearing -- when they go down you cover them, Jack always said that -- looking around to see where the weapons in the room are, and only belatedly does she register the sound of the weapons of the SFs in the Gate Room being racked.

They're being pointed at her. She backs away. They're all looking at her as if she's a stranger once again, and it's unbearable.

Colonel O'Neill raises his hand, just a little, and she stops. She stares at her boots, wishing she were anywhere but here. She wouldn't have shot Daniel Jackson. But why wouldn't he let her go?

"Take her back to her quarters," she hears General Hammond say. They hustle her out. Behind her she sees Major Carter bending over Daniel.

#

"Are you all right?" Sam says.

"Fine," Daniel says automatically.

Somebody hit him. No, his _doppelganger_ hit him.

Sam helps him sit up. Jack hands him his glasses, looking as if he'd be amused if the situation weren't so serious. Daniel feels a faint distant sense of indignation. He saved her life and she hit him.

Apparently she wasn't very grateful.

"People," General Hammond says, after a moment's thought, "we have a problem. It looks as if we have two Dr. Jacksons. Permanently."

"The Furling wanted her," Jack points out.

"He was going to _kill_ her!" Daniel protests indignantly.

"He was going to put her back where he got her from," Jack protests, but his heart isn't really in it.

"On Kelowna -- right before the explosion that killed me is about to go off. Or just after." He thinks for a moment. "It makes sense they'd remove her from somewhere she wouldn't be missed. If she and all of SG-1 were dead..." But why would the bomb go off? He'd defused the explosion. Wouldn't she? Hadn't she? Why is she so sure her SG-1 is dead?

"Theory doesn't solve our problem," General Hammond points out.

"She told me she'd never been to Kheb," Sam says. "So she wouldn't..." Sam makes a 'throwing confetti' gesture. It's hard for any of them to talk about Kelowna and what came after. Not because it was tragic, but because it's still unbelievable.

"Well, we can't just keep her locked up forever," General Hammond says.

Jack doesn't look like he agrees.

"If anyone has any bright ideas, I'll be in my office. Dismissed."

#

It's her assigned quarters, but it's different now. Now it's a prison cell. She's actually seen the inside of prison cells -- inside the SGC and elsewhere -- more often than she'd like to. It's getting to be a motif of her life.

She pulls off her jacket and the rest of her gear and goes into the bathroom. She's covered in dust, and her sinuses are starting to swell. She strips and turns on the shower taps. When she steps into the shower the water runs brown-grey for a moment with grit. She soaps herself quickly, trying desperately not to think, forcing her attention to the conjugation of verbs; a habit she has when trying to distract herself. When she's rinsed the shampoo from her hair she turns off the hot water and stands beneath the cold, letting it numb her until she can't stand it any more.

And she's sure she's managing, handling things, coping, until she comes out into the bedroom again to pull out a set of clean BDUs and sees her worknotes scattered all over the table and her books, no, _Daniel's_ books stacked everywhere and he'll be wanting them back, because his life is resuming and hers is thoroughly over--

And all she can do to stop the pain is hit the nearest wall as hard as she can.

The pain jolts all the way up into her shoulder and makes her gasp in surprise. _Stupid._ At least it's a distraction. It makes dressing awkward, though. If she'd been going to be childish and theatrical, she should at least have waited until she'd gotten her boots back on. She can't manage to lace them one-handed, so she settles for stuffing the laces inside. At least now when they come to drag her back out of here again, she'll be dressed.

Her hand is swelling, and it hurts. She suspects she broke it. Hardly fair, but entirely typical. Thank god she doesn't have to explain this one to Jack.

She curls up on the bed, trying to make sense of disaster.

Her family is dead and she is marooned.

Her knuckles are puffy indents in her hand now. Definitely broken.

She's not going to see Jack again. Or Sammy, or Teal'c. They're all dead.

She's had the leisure to think about that now, and wishes she didn't. The memories of the last two days of her life are sharp, because they're recently returned. Coming home from PHX-1138. Going to Kelowna.

Her mind shies away from what happened next. Her fault. All her fault. If she'd shot Jonas Quinn first, it would have worked. Now, knowing what happened next, she thinks she could have done that.

She waits.

Two hours, maybe a little more, have passed since they returned from PHX-1138. SG-1 will have debriefed without her. What she knows hardly matters, now that they have what they wanted.

She hears a sound at the door and gets to her feet, bracing herself, as if she were a prisoner of her enemies. In truth, it's hard to impute any good motives to these _doppelgangers_ just now.

Daniel Jackson walks in, carrying two lidded paper cups.

"I just wanted to talk," he says, setting the cups down on the table.

"I speak a number of languages. Converse away," she says, turning her back. She's ashamed of losing control so thoroughly, so publicly, but she can't manage to be sorry that she knocked him down.

"What's wrong with your hand?" he asks.

"I think it's broken," she says, surprising herself. She feels almost guilty for not breaking down completely, but she has her pride. Even if Jack is dead, she's not going to do anything -- else -- to make him ashamed of her.

"You should have told the guard," he says. But he doesn't really sound surprised that she hasn't. He doesn't ask how she broke it, either. That surprises her a little.

"Dr. Jackson -- whatever your name is -- in the past nine days I have been scanned, analyzed, sampled, and psychologically dissected. I don't want to see another doctor."

"It's going to need setting," he says, ignoring this. He's standing beside her now. He takes her hand carefully. It still hurts, and she feels an odd sense of unnaturalness when he touches her, although they fought in the Gate Room and he'd had his hands all over her then.

"Yeah, I'd say broken. Wait here." He goes to the door.

 _As if I'm going somewhere?_ she thinks caustically.

Dr. Brightman is there in a matter of minutes. She wants an X-ray, but it takes a call to General Hammond before Dani can be taken to the infirmary. Her _doppelganger_ follows, as if prepared to offer moral support.

Thinking about him is like probing a sore tooth, so she does. She'd wondered what he'd be like in the flesh. The material in the files hadn't given her the truth, just an image of an odd distorted version of herself.

She'd thought he was soft. She'd misjudged him. Somehow. Even though he's her.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" she asks as they walk.

"It can wait," Daniel Jackson tells her.

#

"It's broken," Dr. Brightman confirms ten minutes later, when the X-rays come back. "Nothing serious, just a hairline fracture. I'm going to put it in a light cast. Try not to use it for the next week or so, all right?"

Dr. Brightman is brisk and efficient as she injects Dani's hand with Novocain in a dozen places prior to setting it, but she's not Janet Frasier. Dani misses Janet's presence, though Janet-here would only be someone else who didn't recognize her.

"Now just rest here for a few minutes while that takes effect, and I'll be back to wrap it up."

"They told me Janet's dead," she says, when the two of them are alone.

Daniel Jackson looks surprised for a moment, then makes the connection: everything in her universe is the same as in his – two years behind -- except for her.

"Yes. She died a few months after I got back from Vis Uban." He answers her blank look. "That was a year after Kelowna."

"We should never have gone there," she says.

Daniel lets this pass. "I'd wanted to ask you. Sam says you didn't go to Kheb--"

She nods. "She said you went there looking for the _harceisis_ child. That never happened." It's an effort for her to keep her voice level.

"You _did_ go to Abydos?" Daniel asks.

She knows him. He doesn't know her.

"Yes."

#

"That must have given Jack fits," Daniel suggests. He wants her to talk to him. Talking is better than hitting. Better than silence. If Jack hadn't wanted _him_ going to Abydos, hadn't wanted Sam on the team (and he hadn't, not at first), then...

He remembers the first time he met Jack. Crazy, suicidal, and vicious would have been a reasonable description. Part of him enjoys the idea of having given Jack fits, even by proxy.

"Colonel O'Neill was completely professional," Danielle Jackson answers flatly.

#

Jack had been set to make her trip to Abydos hell. He'd threatened to kill her before they'd even gone through the Stargate. When he'd found out she'd brought Anubis with her it had been the next to last straw. But she couldn't leave her dog behind. There was nobody back at the facility to take care of him. And it had just been supposed to be there-and-back. Anubis went everywhere with her. Finding out she couldn't just turn around and send them right back had been the last straw.

They'd been setting up shelters out on the sand outside the Pyramid. Anubis had wandered off. Came running back toward her over the sand.

Mankiewicz had shot him.

The image has always been conflated in her mind with Sha're's death, the bodies exploding in blood.

Mankiewicz had laughed.

Jack had come running at the sound of gunfire.

Looked around.

Told her to bury her dog.

She remembers dumping her books out of the suitcase she'd brought, scooping fragments of flesh and bloody sand into it, down on her knees, determined not to miss anything, digging and scooping with her bare hands until the sand was clean again. She remembers the silence of the men behind her. She'd gone over the dune with the suitcase to dig a grave.

Was that when her relationship with Jack had begun? Or changed? Or was it later? When she'd taken a staff-blast meant for him?

Or when she'd sent him -- sent them all -- home to life?

She'd stayed to one of her own. To take care of the people he'd come to love. _She'd_ come to love. There was nothing on Earth for her to go back to -- in the most literal sense. It had been enough. Or it had been until the day Jack the Lad had thrown that damned Kleenex box through the damned Gate.

Dr. Brightman and a nurse return to splint and bandage her hand. When they're done, only the tips of her fingers protrude from a cocoon of flesh-colored bandage. She gives Dani a pain pill. Dani slips it into her pocket when they aren't looking.

"Come on," Daniel says. She thinks he's taking her back to her quarters, but to her surprise he heads for the changing rooms.

"Look, why don't you come home with me for tonight? Nothing's going to happen until tomorrow, and this place always depresses me at night. And I've got a guest room."

"I know," she says. She refrains from pointing out that it's her damned guest room, and she leased the loft downtown herself. She hasn't seen it in the last week, of course. For a reflexive moment, strategies of escape and evasion play themselves out in her mind. Once she's out of The Mountain, she could run, get away. But there isn't any place to run _to._ And she's curious about her double. He's the only person whose face and voice don't give her painful feelings of almost-familiarity. And she doesn't want to think about the dead. "That sounds great."

She wonders if he can actually manage it.

He makes sure the locker room is empty, and then beckons her inside. He changes quickly while she tactfully gazes elsewhere. This is a high-security facility. They're all supposed to enter the base and leave it in civilian clothes. Especially, of course, when they're civilians.

"Colin's going to be off-world for the rest of the week. This won't fit, but it should help."

Collie Mendoza is the archeologist on SG-13. Dani's jacket is back in her quarters; the rest of her uniform will pass on the outside if nobody looks too close. Mendoza's jacket is black leather, and hangs halfway to her knees, but the length of the sleeves helps disguise the cast on her right hand.

She has no civilian clothes.

She follows him out. Daniel signs for both of them at the checkpoints. Her cast is her excuse. Their handwriting is similarly illegible.

It takes an effort to remember to get into the passenger side of the Jeep. They drive through three more checkpoints, and they're out.

#

He needs to know the whole story.

He needs to know if he's just killed SG-1 -- another SG-1, but still...

If she was sent back to the right point in time, she could stop the chain reaction, but she'd die. If there's no _harceisis_ child in her universe, she can't be a candidate for Ascension, because she would never go -- or have gone -- to Kheb, never speak to Oma Desala.

But she said SG-1 was already dead...

"The bomb on your Langara -- Kelowna -- went off, didn't it?" he says. They've left the Base road now, but it's still another couple of miles to the highway.

For a long moment he doesn't think she'll answer. It's two years ago for him. It's still her 'now.' He thinks about how he'd feel if Jack, Sam, and Teal'c were all dead. They've thought he was dead, more than once. Oannes, Kelowna, Apophis's _ha'tak._ Lost him. Mourned him. They've all lost each other so many times, in so many ways. Not like this.

"I couldn't get to it in time," she finally says.

Were the two universes that different? He'd been standing right outside the lab with Jonas. "I don't understand."

"The Kelownan culture was roughly at the level of 1940s Earth. I read your mission reports. You know that. They had a hard time with the idea that Sammy and I weren't just there to go for coffee. I should have figured things out from that, but I didn't."

Sam -- _Sammy?_ \-- never mentioned that.

"I saw everybody start to panic. I knew if I could pull the core out I could stop the reaction. The door was locked. I shot out the viewing window."

So far it matches his memories of that day.

"Jonas... I guess he wanted to protect me. I don't know what he thought. He threw himself at me and knocked me down. We struggled. I'd almost gotten loose. We ran out of time."

The silence is painfully loud.

Because she's a woman, her Jonas Quinn tried to protect her from the explosion, costing her the chance to do what _he_ had done: save the rest of the team and the Kelownans. It all has a horrible logic.

"And don't tell me they might have survived. The explosion would have -- will -- does -- take out the entire city. The Gate's probably gone too." Her voice is flat, expressionless.

All gone; the _naquaadriah_ bomb the Kelownans had been building that day would have made anything even in Earth's current arsenal look like a wet firecracker. He has no reason to think the two bombs weren't identical.

In her world, nothing survived.

"So what are you going to do with me now that you've got me?" she asks. He can hear the faint tone of bitter accusation in her voice, though she tries to hide it.

"We, uh, haven't decided yet," Daniel says awkwardly.

"Do let me know."

#

She expects him to drive all the way into town, to the loft on Mainland Street, but instead he heads into the suburbs and stops in front of a nondescript suburban bungalow. That's right. There was a different home address on his file. She just hadn't paid attention.

"After I, um... _died_ … they closed out my apartment. I bought this place after I came back."

It's odd to imagine a version of herself who can speak so casually about coming back from a death more final than any she's ever experienced.

"I know that sounds a little odd. I wasn't dead, exactly. I was Ascended--" He pulls into the driveway and parks.

"I read the mission files," she interrupts.

He blinks at her, apparently finding that as odd as she does his talk of being dead.

"You do know they're classified?" he asks.

"I know all the same access codes you do. I have the same SGC ID code." _I am you._ "I had full access while we were working out how to find you."

"And, ah, thanks for that, by the way."

She doesn't answer. Anything she might say would be a lie.

They go inside. Nothing she sees is familiar. Not the furniture. Her sword collection is missing. The artifacts she bought and collected over the years are gone. There are far too few books in sight. There's a large tank of tropical fish in the living room.

 _'Daniel has fish,'_ she remembers Major Carter saying.

She looks at Daniel, appalled.

He shrugs. "Well, I was dead. They got rid of my things."

All her possessions. Gone. Or even more gone, in some complicated metaphysical way. At home, she's dead, too. General Hammond will send someone to clean out her apartment. Sanitize it.

But her things were to go to Jack, to Sammy, to Teal'c. To Janet and Cassie. A few other people. Some things were to go to museums. _Will_ go to museums.

"I guess I should offer you something to drink."

She remembers that she didn't get her coffee earlier. Beer would actually be better. She follows Daniel into the kitchen. He's preparing coffee. He takes a mug down from the cabinet, offers her a second one with an inquiring expression. She ignores him and opens the refrigerator as if this were her own home.

But there's no beer in the refrigerator. In fact, it doesn't look like hers at all -- it's filled with food and things that can obviously be turned into food.

Is Daniel Jackson living with someone? Someone who happens not to be here now, but has stopped by to fill his refrigerator with groceries?

"Where's the beer?" she asks, not turning around. He can't be doing his own cooking. _She_ can't cook to save her life. _Jack O'Neill_ is a better cook.

"Well, I don't, ah, actually..."

Romaine lettuce and no beer. Terrific. "Scotch?"

"Sorry."

She closes the refrigerator door and turns to regard him in pained disbelief.

"Here, try this." He holds out a bottle of wine. Apparently, in this universe, she keeps wine under the sink.

"Sure. Tell me, all this ... lettuce..."

He stops in the middle of opening the wine. "You don't cook," he says, sounding faintly disbelieving.

"No."

She finds a water glass and fills it with wine. It's awkward with the bandages, but she doesn't care. It's red wine. She isn't much of a connoisseur, of wine at least. She takes the pill out of her pocket and knocks it back with the first swallow.

"Wouldn't you like something to ...eat?" his voice trails off as she drinks half the glass as if it were grape juice. He's just staring at her now, with open and absolute curiosity.

The wine hits hard on top of emotional shock, barbiturates, and (at least) three days of no sleep.

"So. What do they ... call you?" she asks.

"Um... Daniel?" He doesn't actually sound sure. "You?"

 _Jack called me 'Indiana.'_ "Dani. Sometimes. Why didn't you go for the Doctorate in Anthropology?" Her tone is aggressive, bordering on contemptuous.

"What?" He's opened the refrigerator again, and is removing things. Eggs. Vegetables.

"Linguistics, Anthropology, Archaeology, History. I have four. You've only got two."

He regards her mildly, thinking it over for a moment.

"This may be the first time in my life I've been called 'stupid' for having a double PhD," he says mildly.

He speaks 24 languages. She speaks 32. That isn't counting the offworld ones, like _Goa'uld_ or Abydan.

"Look. Dani. I'm ... sorry about what happened to your friends."

"No. You're not." The wine and the pill make her as bluntly truthful as an oracle. She crosses the kitchen to refill her glass.

"I'm not." The tone in his voice is not quite a question.

"Yours are still alive." It's awkward pouring with her left hand. She's very careful.

"I can't help that." His voice is very quiet. "Killing yourself wouldn't have changed things. You don't want to die."

She presses her broken hand against the counter, making it hurt. The hell of it is, he's right. She already knows that, and hates herself for it.

He takes the bottle out of her hand and sets it back on the counter, takes the half-full glass and sets it out of her reach. "Why don't you have something to eat before you finish that?" he suggests.

For some reason she thinks of Sammy. They'd clung to each other for support when Jack was lost on Edora, both refusing to believe he was dead -- or lost to them forever. Fighting to get him back. In a strange way, the memory comforts her now. She nods reluctantly.

#

"Did you go on the dig to Peru in '87?"

She knows all of his history. He knows none of hers. They don't match. Not quite. He's curious. Questions fill in the gaps.

"My grant wasn't approved." It was easier to collect useless degrees than to buck the glass ceiling, the expectation that women didn't go to dangerous places. Women didn't play Indiana Jones. Women stayed in the ivy-covered halls and catalogued the finds their male colleagues brought back.

He's made omelettes. He's a good cook.

"Valley of the Kings?"

"Which year?" The smile almost brings tears.

She'd loved Egypt with a passion. She'd grown up there. It was considered 'safe.' They always needed more hands on the digs, and people who could speak some of the fifty languages of Alexandria.

And drink the water.

He's fascinated by their differences, drawing her out. He's easy to talk to – he's her, isn't he? The wine insulates her, gives her the vague sense that none of this is happening at all.

#

"…the quarterstaff is the perfect close-combat weapon. You can make one anywhere if you have a little time. You can adapt its principles to a Jaffa staff weapon. It's simple."

He winces faintly. She shakes her head. She's not going to apologize, though she feels like doing so now.

#

"…so Catherine recruited you to decipher the coverstone?" he asks.

"I was teaching at Berkeley. Actually, I was a TA."

His pointed look says it all. A TA with four doctorates. Not even an untenured professor.

"At least I had a job," she says.

"It took me two weeks," he says. A truce offering.

"Yeah. Me, too."

"How did she find you?"

"I ... posted to a listserve." A bad idea, foolish, she'd been under review for it by the college when Catherine arrived. Conduct Unbecoming. She didn't know who'd outed her and passed copies of her posts up the line. (Later, she could have found out easily, but by then she didn't care.) She'd gotten so annoyed with the know-nothing yahoos on Archaeology-L that she'd just snapped. Told them how wrong they were, how ignorant. It had felt good at the time.

He smiles faintly. "Probably better than a public lecture."

They talk into the late -- early -- hours. By morning, she's resigned herself to living. Her people are dead. She can't help them now. Becoming _sati_ will change nothing.

She'd always expected to die on one of their missions. She'd come close more times than she could count -- crossed the line, and come back. So had Jack, Sammy, Teal'c. There'd been times when General Hammond had given them up for dead -- individually and as a team -- and times when they'd nearly given up on each other. But not like this.

It's going to be hard, but that's nothing new.

Daniel has a spare toothbrush. And there's coffee before she leaves.

#

It's too much to hope for that Daniel can get her back onto the base as easily as he removed her last night. Colonel O'Neill is waiting for them when they get out of the first elevator.

"Daniel," he says meaningfully. "Glad to see you're still in one piece," he adds, a tacit acknowledgment of her presence.

They take the second elevator ride in silence.

"Daniel, I think Carter is holding your usual table," Jack says when the doors open.

"Okay, Jack, but I was just going to--"

"You don't want to keep her waiting."

She sees Daniel finally get the hint, consider arguing, change his mind, and retreat.

"I'll see you later," he says.

She wonders if he will, or if she's simply going to disappear sometime in the next few hours.

"So. Have a nice time at Daniel's?" The words are casual, but she knows that tone and that mood.

"We talked, Colonel. I wanted to get out of here for a while, that's all. I'm back now."

"Well that's good," O'Neill says without a trace of sincerity. "And I'm sure you won't mind being back in here."

She walks into her cage without looking back. She hears the door lock behind her. The things she left here last night are gone.

#

"It's really hard to imagine that we're really ... versions ... of the same person," Daniel is saying tentatively. "We're so different."

He's told her something about the 'alternate history' Danielle has related to him, mostly in bafflement. Danielle has told Daniel more and different things than she ever told Sam, but Daniel has always had that effect on people.

He's looking a combination of outraged and fascinated. It's cute, really. Sam supposes you'd take the differences more personally if it was your alter ego -- after all, Dr. Carter from the SGA had certainly bothered her at first -- but at least Dr. Carter had been another woman. She wonders how much it bothers Daniel to confront a female version of himself.

They _are_ different.

Danielle Jackson's behaviors makes a lot more sense to Sam, another formidably bright woman who's had to deal with male preconceptions all her life.

"Maybe not really," Sam says. "Maybe you'd be just like that, if--"

 _If you'd been born female, and dealt with the 'glass ceiling' all your life -- and had people tell you over and over that you couldn't do things not because you weren't smart enough, or strong enough, or even because your theories were wrong, but because 'girls don't do things like that.'_

She thinks of Danielle attacking Daniel in the Gate Room.

 _Not to mention that half the population is bigger and stronger than you are, and sometimes they take it really personally when you show them that you're smarter than they are..._

Daniel is shaking his head doubtfully. "She _shot_ Sha're," he says, which seems to settle some point in his mind. "And I don't think she likes Jack very much."

Sam nearly chokes on her coffee. "What gives you that idea?" she says weakly. It's perfectly clear to Sam how Danielle feels about Jack O'Neill -- at least, about her own Jack O'Neill -- and she is equally certain that in Danielle's home universe, Samantha Carter is neither a threat nor a rival in that regard. Either that, or Danielle Jackson is the greatest actress who ever lived.

And that is something Sam doubts very much.

"Well, she said their relationship was 'very professional' -- and you know what that means. Jack can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. And she can't even stand to be around him," Daniel says, as if these unrelated statements constitute conclusive proof of something.

"Well," Sam says diplomatically, "the people we are in her universe might all be very different."

But she doubts it.

#

O'Neill is in General Hammond's office. There are always problems to deal with at the SGC, but right now the problem they're discussing is five foot six and locked in a cell.

"We can't let her go," O'Neill says. He's sure of that. "And ... apparently ... we can't just send her back."

He also knows what General Hammond is going to suggest. It's logical. It's reasonable. It's going to be an unmitigated disaster, and he can't put his finger on just why.

"There have been a lot of times over the last eight years when I've wished that Dr. Jackson could be in two places at once," General Hammond says. "And we've offered asylum to your counterparts before. I'm waiting on authorization now, but I really don't think it won't come through. If she agrees, I'm going to offer her the chance to stay with the SGC. Unless you can think of a reason I shouldn't?"

Her behavior in the Gate Room doesn't count against her, and they both know it. General Hammond has seen every form of reaction from the survivors of Gate Teams in the first moments when they realize that they are just that: the surviving members. Laughter, tears, violent hysterics... It's what she does now that matters.

"Would you be sending her offworld, sir?" O'Neill asks neutrally.

"I don't expect her to join SG-1, if that's what you're asking, Colonel. But -- if she stays -- I don't see why she shouldn't be allowed to join one of the other SG Teams. It's hard to get qualified archaeologists for the program, as you know -- not to mention linguists of Dr. Jackson's caliber."

"We're going to have to call her something else." _Buffy, maybe. Or Indiana Jane._

"We've provided identities for people before," General Hammond reminds him. O'Neill is stalling and they both know it. "Colonel?"

"I think it's a fine idea, sir." It bites, but General Hammond's right. And Daniel's still in one piece and the Xerox walked back in this morning, two points in her favor.

The phone rings. General Hammond picks it up, listens. There's a short conversation.

"That's the final authorization from the Pentagon, Colonel. Now it's up to us. And to her."

O'Neill sighs deeply. "Let's see what she says, General."

The General picks up the phone again. "Would you have someone escort Dr. Jackson -- the other Dr. Jackson -- to my office?"

#

She's been expecting this. A summons to the General's office. To be told ... what?

 _"Thank you for your help, and we'll be getting on with our lives now."_

 _"We're transferring you to some place where they'll have to pipe sunlight in, and where nobody will ever find out about you."_

Why the _hell_ couldn't Daniel Jackson have left well enough alone?

Because she wouldn't have in his place. If he'd been an interloper in her world, she'd never have let him try to go off with a megalomaniac alien trickster to certain death.

But she had the odd certainty he wouldn't have made that choice. He'd actually _resigned_ from the SGC once. And on Kelowna, he'd done what she couldn't -- saved SG-1 -- but he left again. He'd chosen Ascension (she's read about it) over the chance to live.

When Jack had gone undercover on that NID sting, he'd actually believed the cover story. She never had.

She follows the SFs to the General's office. No point in saying she knows the way. No point in protesting that she doesn't need armed escort.

But it's humiliating.

When she walks in, Colonel O'Neill is there, regarding her with a blank gaze just short of actual hostility. She wants to slap him. Hard. She turns away, focusing on the General.

 _All right. I'm not 'your' Dani Jackson. But I got him back for you, Colonel Jack O'Neill. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't anything ever going to be enough?_

"Dr. Jackson. Sit down," General Hammond says.

She sits.

"Dr. Brightman tells me you seem to have hurt your hand."

She feels herself blushing, and hates it.

"I, um, I--" What is she supposed to say? That she punched out a wall because she wasn't allowed to commit suicide? "It's fine. Will be. I'm, um, sorry about, ah, my behavior in the Gate Room, and, um, Dr. Jackson. Yesterday. I was--"

"Under a great deal of stress, I understand. Dr. Jackson -- our Dr. Jackson--"

Behind her, she hears the Colonel snort faintly.

"--explained that you feel responsible for the events that led to the death of -- your -- SG-1 on Kelowna."

Daniel had saved them. Why couldn't she have? She isn't sure how to respond to General Hammond. _Yes sir? No sir?_ Neither one seems quite right.

"Sir, with respect--" it's one of Jack's favorite phrases when he's about to be especially insolent. She hears it coming out of her mouth and flinches inwardly. "I ... you asked to see me, sir?"

"I was wondering what your plans were?"

Plans? Her mind careens wildly for a moment. They're going to let her off the Mountain? She supposes she could find a job somewhere -- her qualifications are good...

Reality brings her up with a jolt. She _has_ no qualifications. In this universe, she doesn't even exist.

"I hadn't actually had time to make any, General."

She feels Colonel O'Neill hovering like the Angel of Death, and forces herself to concentrate on General Hammond. Why is the Colonel here? Does he think she's going to attack General Hammond next?

"I was wondering if you'd consider ... continuing with the SGC?" General Hammond says.

Yes! No. He _can't_ be offering her a place on SG-1.

 _"My options are limited, considering that I don't exist."_

 _"I'd rather be dead. I'm supposed to be dead. Or at least, I'd rather be in my General Hammond's office explaining to him why his Jack O'Neill isn't there."_

She says neither of these things. The Pentagon must have authorized this, or else he wouldn't be making this offer.

"Dr. Jackson?"

"What sort of responsibilities would I have?" _Play for time._ Jack always said that. _Play for time, and don't make any assumptions._

"Essentially what you've been used to." There's an awkward note in General Hammond's voice now. He's getting to the part he doesn't like -- or thinks _she_ isn't going to like. "We'd try to find you a position on a Gate Team just as soon as one is available. And as soon as you're certified for offworld travel, of course."

"Of course." She's written half the certification protocols!

"It's just a formality."

"I understand, sir." Not SG-1. Some other SG Team. As if she were somebody else. She takes a deep breath. "Thank you, sir. I'd appreciate the chance to ... continue my work with the SGC."

"Good." General Hammond sounds satisfied. And relieved. "Colonel O'Neill will help you get settled in. Oh, and Dr. Jackson?"

She's getting to her feet. She freezes.

"Sir?"

"It would probably be best if you ... chose another name. For the paperwork."

She nods, unable to speak. It's unfair to think that they've taken everything else away from her and now they're taking away her name, but she can't help it. She is _not_ going to break in front of Jack O'Neill.

She just isn't.

#

"So? Name?"

They're heading for the Documents section. She'll need a real pass and ID card, just to begin with. She supposes the SGC will provide the entire package -- birth certificate, Social Security Card, driver's license -- eventually. They've done it before. She has to hurry to keep up with the Colonel. That hasn't changed.

"Ballard." That's easy enough. She's even entitled to it.

"Just 'Ballard?' Because, you know, that's going to look a little funny, and Payroll always gets screwed up with these single names..."

Like Teal'c's. God, he's trying to drive her crazy. This is Jack O'Neill in an innocent playful mood -- except it's actually Jack O'Neill pissed off about something -- not that it's hard to guess what, right now -- and doing his patented white mutiny routine.

And it isn't the real Jack.

Sometimes she wonders how he made Colonel without getting fragged.

"Dan-- uh. Dana. Dana Ballard." Dana Scully, like the _X-Files._ Sammy and Janet had both been addicted to the show, and forced her to watch it more than once. Suitable, considering that her entire life has become an _X-File._ And she knows she'll answer to it, because on Abydos, they called her _'Dana're'._ Flatter 'a' sound, accent on the last syllable, the female royal suffix, used by those who were not the actual head of the clan. She was entitled to it. And she's always hated 'Danielle.' It's girly.

On the first Abydos mission, Jack had called her 'Doc.' Later, he'd started calling her 'Indiana.' That had stuck, memorably.

She'd retaliated, of course. Called him Jack-the-Lad and Jacky Boy and Saucy Jacky. She wonders if there's anyone to do that here.

She wonders if Major Carter still has the nickname Sam-I-Am because of her ability – discovered on one memorable occasion – to recite the entire text of _Green Eggs And Ham_ while falling-down drunk.

She wonders if anyone calls Teal'c 'Mr. T.' If anyone does, it won't be her. Because they aren't her friends any more.

They round a corner and nearly run into Daniel. Or the other way around, really. Does the man never look where he's going?

"Oh, uh, hi, Jack."

"Danny Boy, meet the newest member of the SGC -- Dana Ballard."

That's her, now.

Jack calls him 'Danny?' _Him?_

"Ballard?" Daniel sounds surprised.

"I'm entitled to the name." She's tired of being nice.

"Well, uh ... so you're staying? With the SGC, I mean? _Our_ SGC?"

Somebody hand her a weapon. This time she _is_ going to shoot him.

"Unless somebody wants to offer me a way home, Daniel, yes: I'm staying," she says with what she feels is more than adequate patience. Daniel casts a speaking look over her shoulder at Colonel O'Neill. She keeps herself from turning around to see his face.

"Well, then, congratulations. I guess." He juggles an armload of books and papers and holds out a hand. She takes it -- awkwardly -- with her left hand.

"Thank you, Dr. Jackson. It will be a pleasure working with you," she says with unconcealed irony.

#

It is really, truly, bizarre how much his alter-ego sounds like Jack. If you close your eyes. Just what they need here. Two Jack O'Neills.

Of course General Hammond would want her to stay. It's the best available solution. And she'll have her -- his -- their work. Maybe it would stop piling up so much if there were two of them.

But ... god. What kind of a universe is it where he can turn out to be like Jack O'Neill?

And ... Dana Ballard? That's just weird.

#

Documents and Records is a nightmare.

The computer won't take her fingerprints or retinal scan because they're already on file. Eventually, the Colonel just tells the sergeant to override the computer.

"Date of birth?"

"July 8, 19.." she's two years behind Daniel here. "..67."

"You don't look it," the Colonel says. "Make it 1972."

At least he lets her keep her birthday.

"Parents' names?"

 _Claire Ballard and Melburne Jackson._ "John and Mary," she says blandly.

"Mother's maiden name?"

"Smith?" the Colonel suggests.

"Parradine," she says. Eventually he'll look it up, if he's anything like the real Jack.

The list of questions goes on, general personal information for the basic record. She doesn't bother to remember the answers she gives, knowing she'll see the file later. She'll have to memorize it then.

Photos are taken.

"Your ID will be ready in just a minute," the sergeant says. "Ah, Dr. Ballard, we don't seem to be able to find your Personnel File...?"

"Her paperwork was lost," the Colonel says easily. "She's going to have to fill it out all over again."

The sergeant retreats, and returns with a one-inch thick stack of forms. Schooling. Special Interests and Abilities. Why I Want To Join The SGC And See The Universe. Please attach copies of diplomas and certificates, vaccination records, all the paperwork she doesn't have. She has no idea what she's going to put down. They can't confirm any of it and none of the dates will match her new birthdate.

The sergeant goes off again in search of her ID.

"Why'd you jam the door?" the Colonel says when they're alone. It takes her a moment to track back to what he's referring to.

"I couldn't let you move him. It would violate their rules. It would be theft. They'd respond violently. The globe let me in when I touched it."

And she'd remembered Kelowna.

"General Hammond wants a full debrief when we're done here."

#

It's just the three of them in the General's office. It's one of the less-pleasant events of her SGC career, but she knows it's the price of staying. She explains everything: what she knew, and guessed, and when, and why she tried the idiotically dangerous stunt that nearly killed them all. Why the events come in this order -- the invitation to join and then the final debrief -- is something only Jack could explain to her. But Jack is dead and she's stuck with this evil ghost.

"When the globe threw me out the first time, I remembered being on Kelowna. The Furling took me from there when the _naquaadriah_ core went into meltdown. I think I'd already taken a lethal dose; that would make sense, anyway. It erased any trace of that, obviously -- because you didn't find radiation when you examined me -- and suppressed everything I remembered after the time I'd been on PHX-1138, before it exchanged me for Daniel Jackson."

"And you think it did that in order to ... talk?" General Hammond says doubtfully.

She sighs. "In order to see if we were worth talking to yet is my guess. You might get something out of the Asgard; they once had an alliance with the Furlings. I only have theories. The Furling communicate with younger races by ... riddles."

"And if we'd brought the Furling device back to the SGC?" General Hammond asks.

"Would you really want to make people like that angry, General?" she asks. That's all she's sure of: that the results wouldn't have been ... nice.

"So you solved the riddle and get the door prize, and we don't," the Colonel says.

She closes her eyes for a moment. "I don't know."

"Some prices are too high to pay," General Hammond says firmly. "I'd like you to write up a report on all this as soon as you …can," he finishes, looking at her hand. "Dismissed."

Outside General Hammond's door, the Colonel hands her over to Walter. "See that Dr. Ballard has everything she needs."

#

She needs quite a lot, and by the end of the working day, she isn't finished collecting items yet.

She already has a few articles of clothing, but now she needs a complete set of uniforms. Not gear -- she isn't going offworld any time soon. Just BDUs for every occasion. Underwear. Socks. Toiletries. A passkey to her new office.

She leaves the clothes back in A3 Quarters -- she'll be living on Base for the foreseeable future, but fortunately, not in a prison cell -- and goes down to her new office. It's on 18, of course, in Geek Row. Daniel's office is just down the hall. It feels strange to pass that door, but it's no longer hers.

Dana Ballard's new office is utterly barren. There's a desk and a long table and bookshelves and lamps. A computer. A printer. A fax machine. A phone. Stacks of office supplies: pads of paper, boxes of pens, of paperclips, of rubber bands, of file folders.

It is as impersonal as a hotel room.

Walter leaves her a stack of requisition forms. "Anything else you need, just fill these out. We can have it to you within the day."

She nods, feeling the buzzing lightheadedness of utter exhaustion. All her books are gone. Her notes, her basic reference texts, gone. Her entire library.

She needs a laptop. A chalkboard.

She sits down behind the desk and turns on the computer. She can't type with the bandages on her hand, and it hurts to try. But she's stubborn enough to log in with her new ID and her new password, typing slowly and awkwardly, left-handed. The familiar screens come up; she clicks on her internal email account (she can use the mouse right handed and it only hurts a little) and sees much of the same familiar junk mail that she's used to.

There's an email from Daniel.

She recognizes the originating account, even though it's just the first four letters of the last name and a string of numbers. It's hers. _Was_ hers. She deletes the email unread.

#

In the morning, in the Commissary, she sees the others sitting together at a table.

It's simply impossible for her not to see them, as if SG-1 were her secret crush. Today's just another working day for them. Their lives have gone on.

She takes her tray to a table as far away as she can get. She's barely picked up her fork before someone sits down opposite her.

"Hi. You're new here."

Everything about him screams 'Lab Rat.' He looks familiar -- she's seen him before -- and after a moment she places the name. Mike Feinberg. Not her department. Sammy's?

She isn't supposed to know him anyway.

"Yes. I just started. Dana Ballard."

They shake hands -- even more awkwardly than normal, since she offers him her left hand.

"Slammed it in a car door," she lies, waving the bandaged one.

"Mike Feinberg. You must be so proud to be here. I knew you were one of us the moment I saw you. Those military guys, they all stick together, but without us, the SGC would just be a big hole in the ground. What's your specialty?"

 _'One of us.'_ No. She's a member of a Gate Team. She's a member of SG-1.

"Archaeology and linguistics," she says. She's going to have to tell somebody sometime.

"Oh, like Dr. Jackson. I guess you're hoping to learn a lot from him."

"Dr. Jackson is the heart and soul of the Stargate Program, and a finer human being never lived and breathed," she says with fulsome venom. As she suspected, the ambiguity is lost on Feinberg. She gives up. "What's your specialty, Doctor? I assume it's 'Doctor?'"

For the next twenty minutes she listens to something bordering on the incomprehensible. He's either a physicist or an engineer. She can't tell which. He's paged to his lab, which interrupts his explanation. He pats her hand as he leaves, and she makes a mental note to avoid him.

She glances across the room. SG-1 is gone.

#

Her mornings used to be filled with briefings and prepping for offworld missions. This morning is spent trying to figure out how to hold a pen in her bandaged hand well enough to fill out requisition forms. It doesn't prosper. She gives up.

"Hey, are you the new linguist?"

It's Lieutenant Tucker from SG-19. They've been on missions together. She's not supposed to know him, either.

"Yes."

"Do you know any offworld languages?"

She gets up. Anything is a welcome distraction. "What have you got?"

"We aren't sure, and we were hoping you could take a look at it for us."

#

It's a set of golden tablets, inscribed in ornate and nearly undecipherable script. The amount of gold brought from offworld and archived here at the SGC would probably offset the National Debt. It's a common metal -- offworld -- and easily worked. The _Goa'uld_ are fond of it.

SG-19 are gathered in Captain Cavendish's office. Cavendish is their archaeologist -- and barely competent at it in her opinion, at least if his _doppelganger_ runs true -- and he's certainly no linguist.

"It's a _Goa'uld_ artifact," she says, barely bothering to give it a glance. "It was probably installed in a temple, which means it could be a number of things: identification of the _Goa'uld_ worshipped there; a prayer to be said, a curse upon specific enemies, and so on. It's written in an ancient _Goa'uld_ dialect, which either means it's very old, or it belongs to one of the more ancient _Goa'uld_ overlords. Do you want it translated?"

"Are you sure that's what it is?" Cavendish says dubiously.

"That it's _Goa'uld_ , gold, was originally installed in a temple, and is written in an ancient dialect dating back to at least the time of Ra? Yes. Do I have any idea of what it says? No. Translation takes time."

The four members of SG-19 all look at each other. They aren't buying it, though it's the honest truth. She should probably have taken longer before identifying it, but she's seen dozens like it over the years. And she _can't_ translate it, unless she burgles Daniel's office. She needs to see what worknotes of his she can download from the mainframe. They should match hers. They'll be better than nothing.

"Well, thanks anyway, Dr. Ballard," Cavendish says. "I guess we'll wait for Dr. Jackson to get back and take a look at it."

"Do that," she says.

She goes back to her office. She can't write, but she can use the mouse and the printer, and the computer has an Intranet connection and an Internet gateway. First she prints out Daniel's notes on archaic _Goa'uld_ forms -- if she's going to have to reconstruct her workbooks, she'll start here. Then she goes on-line, cruising the internet bookstores for the other reference volumes she needs.

Eventually she checks her email. She's got an assignment. She'll be working in the Cataloguing and Translation Section. She starts tomorrow.

She winces. There's a huge backlog there, and if there's any place in the SGC that's a dead-end, it's C&T. Nothing urgent or important ends up there. She was always being threatened with it...

Back home.

There are other messages. She has an appointment with Dr. MacKenzie this afternoon. 'For evaluation.' There's also a memo from the Special Projects Department -- which is where they hide things like papertripping Cassandra -- telling her they're working on her documents, as well as on getting her an advance against her salary so that she can establish herself here in the outside world. Both the documents and the advance will take time.

She's not in a hurry.

She doesn't want to see MacKenzie, either, but once again, it's non-negotiable.

#

It's the Vernal Equinox. It's snowing. An airman drives her over to the hospital. She still hates this place. MacKenzie locked her up here after she came back from P3C-599 implanted with Ma'chello's _Goa'uld_ -killing devices. They all thought she'd gone mad.

"Dr. Jackson. Sit down."

"It's Dr. Ballard now, I think."

"Still," MacKenzie says. "It must be a difficult adjustment for you to make. How are you doing?"

'Fine' is definitely the wrong answer. She knows this. "It's a little awkward. I'll manage."

"I want to help you, Dr. Jackson," MacKenzie says. "You've just lost your entire team. I know how close the members of SG-1 are."

SG-1 is still alive. She saw them at breakfast.

"It must be even harder, seeing them still alive, and not having them recognize you."

"I know I'm in an alternate universe, Dr. MacKenzie. The SG-1 I see here isn't my SG-1."

Apparently that isn't the answer he wants. "How do you feel about Daniel Jackson?"

"Daniel? My... double?" It's the most neutral word she can think of, and it takes her a moment of searching to come up with it.

"When you realized you were trapped here, you attacked him." He nods at her bandaged hand.

He thinks she broke her hand in the Gate Room, she realizes. She's about to correct him, but decides that probably sounds better than the truth.

"I'd just recovered my memories of Kelowna. I was in shock. I'm... You know, I'm really sorry it happened, but I don't..."

"You wanted to die, didn't you?" he says, when it becomes obvious she isn't going to say anything else.

She stares at the floor. "I wasn't really thinking clearly. There wouldn't be a lot of point to that, would there? Dying? It's not going to change anything."

"Tell me about Jack O'Neill."

That question catches her completely by surprise. She stares at MacKenzie wildly.

"Colonel O'Neill? Why?" She shakes her head.

"He was in command of SG-1."

"He _is_ in command of SG-1," she says, confused and wary.

"No. I want to hear about _your_ Colonel O'Neill."

Jack. She isn't going to talk to this stranger about Jack.

"They... They're the same person, Dr. MacKenzie. You've got his file. You do his psych evaluations."

"I'd like to know about your relationship with him. With your Colonel O'Neill."

"It's probably just about the same as this one has with Daniel Jackson, Dr. MacKenzie," she says, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

"But I'm sure there have to have been differences. You're a woman. Don't you think Colonel O'Neill would treat you differently?"

"'Differently'?" She thinks of Jonas Quinn on Kelowna. "No. He would never do that."

"Do what, Dr. Jackson?"

She has to give him something. He'll never leave her alone if she doesn't. "He would not make an issue of my gender. I was the archaeological and linguistic specialist for SG-1. That was all I was to him. He treated me no differently than he treated Sammy or Teal'c."

"So you would say your relationship wasn't close?"

He's laying a trap for her. "Dr. MacKenzie, you've just told me you knew how close the members of SG-1... are." Were. Because her SG-1 is dead.

"So you'd say that you _were_ close to Colonel O'Neill?" MacKenzie probes.

She's had enough. "Doctor, do you want me to tell you I was laying him in rows? Or him and Teal'c? Or maybe him, Teal'c, _and_ Sammy? Believe me, we heard every variation on that and some you probably can't even imagine. We were close. We were a field team." Her hands are shaking. She wraps her arms around herself and rests her chin on her chest.

"Dr. Jackson, I don't want to upset you. I just want to help you," MacKenzie says.

She grits her teeth. "You want to know if I'm going to go crazy." Again.

"You're under a lot of stress."

 _Stress? You haven't seen stress._ "I just need time to adjust."

"Everyone understands that. I know this is difficult for you, especially being asked to give up your own identity. But it's my job to determine your fitness to continue with the Stargate Program."

"Sure," she says, not moving.

"I'd like to take a complete personal history. It will be completely confidential."

Of course it will. Only half-a-dozen people will see it, probably including the Colonel. Oh, and any NID agents who happen to steal the file.

"I understand there are several points at which your personal history diverges from that of Dr. Daniel Jackson's."

"Yes. I think so." She knows it for a fact.

"We can start next time. I'm afraid you'll be seeing quite a lot of me over the next few weeks. And there are some basic tests I'd like to run."

"Oh, hey, haven't had those in a while," she mutters.

"I really do want to help you," he insists again, getting to his feet. "But I can't do it without your cooperation."

She rises as well, feeling as if she's escaping, knowing she isn't. "Of course I'll cooperate," she says. _I'm sure this will be a fascinating case study for you, Dr. MacKenzie._

#

There aren't any swear-words in _Goa'uld_. But you can put together some fairly scurrilous phrases if you know the language well. She's doing her best, muttering under her breath as she searches the Internet for more books she'll need.

"Hey, you'd better be careful. Someone might understand you."

"Nobody on Earth can--" she begins automatically. She looks up. Daniel is standing in the doorway. He has a bundle of books and papers under his arm. He gives her a half-salute and a small smile.

Nobody on Earth but him. Okay, and Teal'c. It's actually impossible to hate Daniel. She wonders if this is some perverse form of narcissism on her part.

"Ah... what was that last one?" he asks.

 _‹"S/he who is badly-spawned/insane enough to choose as host/be forced into a diseased Tau'ri corpse, "›_ she repeats out loud. The _Goa'uld_ syllables are short and barking.

Daniel blinks, obviously storing this up for future use. "Um. I just came by to tell you I told Cavendish that you were right about those tablets. They didn't find them in place, so SG-19 is going to need a translation to figure out which _Goa'uld's_ temple was looted. I brought you my notes." He walks into her office, glancing around. "You're going to need a lot of ... things."

"Starting with every book you have," she says with a despairing sigh.

He sets the pile he's carrying down on her desk. She recognizes her field journals -- _his_ field journals -- and the golden tablets. She sets the tablets aside and picks up the first journal. It's awkward. She thinks -- not for the first time -- that hitting that wall wasn't one of her brighter ideas.

Daniel sits down on the edge of her desk.

"So. You saw MacKenzie today?"

She nods, staring at the book. She's going to have to copy all of this out as soon as she can use her hand.

"Was it fun?"

She looks up. Daniel is regarding her quizzically. It's a joke, she realizes. Sort of. A black one.

"We made a deal. I tell him all about my life, and he doesn't lock me up in a padded cell."

"Yeah, sounds like fun," Daniel agrees with himself, grimacing. "Look, I'm--"

"I really ought to get started on this," she says quickly. "Thanks for the reference."

He takes the hint, getting up and heading for the door. She turns back to the journal.

#

She works late into the night on the tablets -- as she'd suspected, they're a dedication-piece but without the rest of her library she's having trouble isolating the name of the _Goa'uld_ involved -- and reports to Cataloguing and Translation in the morning. Instead of putting her to work, they waste four hours of her time with an orientation lecture she doesn't need. But she can't tell them she was one of the people who set this place up five years ago.

They'd say she was crazy.

She grabs a sandwich in the Commissary and takes it back to her office. She can get in at least another forty minutes on the tablets before she has to report back to C&T for the exciting afternoon tour of the holdings. Maybe tomorrow they'll let her get some work done.

When she gets there, she stops in the doorway, staring. Her worktable is stacked with boxes. There's a blackboard in the corner.

She hasn't ordered anything yet.

She opens the first box, then the next, then the next.

Books.

Halliwell-Phillips. A concise Latin Dictionary (four volumes). A Greek lexicon. Mackey. Cirlot on symbols. Budge (that has to be a joke.) An enormous copy of _The Book of Coming Forth By Day_. The unabridged Frazier. The complete OED. _Her_ books. _Her_ library. Not the rare ones, the out of print ones, but the ones that can be quickly found. If you have the resources of the U.S. Air Force. And know exactly what you're looking for.

Daniel has done this. She picks up _The Book of Coming Forth By Day_ and goes back to her desk. She's an hour late getting back to Cataloging and Translation. They have to call her office to find her.

#

"I need--" she says. Daniel points silently at the shelf, staring intently into his computer. She finds the book she needs. It's one of the rare ones. They haven't been able to locate her a copy yet.

She's been here two weeks now. She's still living on-base. The sessions with MacKenzie haven't gotten easier. The man seems to be obsessed with how her life differs from Daniel's. At least she's managed to get him off the subject of grief counseling.

She glances over Daniel's shoulder at his monitor. She recognizes the writing.

"Furling," she says. For a moment, her own translation project -- it has something to do, she thinks, with ancient Chaldean, hence her visit to Daniel's office -- is forgotten.

"When we checked, apparently the Stargate had ended up back at its original location, so General Hammond sent SG-13 back to PHX-1138 to try to excavate that underground complex," Daniel says absently. "They were only able to retrieve a couple of pieces from near the surface, though."

She turns and flees.

#

Three weeks. Her first paycheck will be coming through today, along with her 'loan'. Her documents package came through a few days ago. She exists.

This weekend she's going to sign out a car from the motor pool and drive into Colorado Springs. She needs civilian clothes. She should look for an apartment.

She's reluctant. She knows it's because it feels like an admission that she's here, really here, forever. But she has to do it, because hey, it's another signpost on the road to mental health, right?

MacKenzie will be so thrilled.

Her office has taken on a messy lived-in look by now. It's filled with books, stacks of papers, projects she's working on. Her mornings are still spent down in C&T but she handles the priority jobs here and there are always plenty of those.

 _I am Dr. Dana Ballard and I have no life_. Every morning for the last three weeks she's repeated that mantra to herself. It almost helps.

"Hey." Daniel is in the doorway. He's geared up for a mission.

It's odd. Of all of the _doppelgangers_ , she supposes her own double should bother her most of all, but he doesn't. There are no memories attached to him, simply the odd and interesting sense of seeing a Might Have Been. She's careful to avoid the others -- and has so far been successful in that -- but Daniel...

Well, she couldn't avoid him if she tried, so it's just as well.

"You can't want to borrow a book."

He smiles at that. "No. But we're going offworld, and it might be a while, so I thought you'd like to have this while I'm gone. It's a copy. General Hammond okayed it."

He walks over and puts it on her desk. A plastic card. It's a key to his office. She ducks her head, not certain of what to say. Him giving her the key is an oddly intimate gesture.

"Thanks." She doesn't ask where he's going. Dr. Ballard isn't cleared for that information. "Be careful." She doesn't know why she says it. He'll be as careful as she would.

There's a brief awkward pause.

"I'm probably late," Daniel says.

She makes shooing motions. Of course he's late. There's always one last thing to pack. She was always the last one to get to the Gate Room.

#

Friday night she goes to the mall. It's the first week of April, and Colorado Springs is in the middle of a late-season storm. It doesn't affect the number of end-of-week shoppers. She's shopped here before -- it's the nearest one to the Mountain, and she's often stopped here on her way home -- but now it feels as if she's just Gated to an alien planet.

Her boots and fatigues don't raise any eyebrows -- she could be anything from actual military to a slumming student -- but she'll feel better once she's in mufti. She heads for Sears.

Tan khakis. Sweaters. Sneakers. Gloves. Hat. A stadium coat, guaranteed to keep her warm to twenty below. Things she can buy quickly without worrying about trying them on. She pays for her purchases -- Special Documents has set her up with everything she needs -- and changes in the mall restroom, bundling her other clothes into the shopping bags. She feels better and worse once she's dressed as a civilian. As if she's irrevocably severed some tie.

She wanders around the mall until closing time, feeling as if she's looking for something, though what it is, she isn't sure. Instead of driving back to the Mountain that night, she rents a hotel room. A Best Western. It occurs to her she should have bought luggage to put her shopping bags into, but by the time she's at the front desk, it's too late. They let her check in anyway. She drinks in the hotel bar until closing.

The next day, she rents the first apartment she sees.

She'd gone back to Mainland Street, intending to rent her old apartment. There are vacancies in the building, but she realizes she can't bear to live there. Too many memories. Too much temptation to believe she might be home. She drives around until she sees another apartment building. New. Units for rent. She parks.

The building manager shows her a vacancy. It smells of fresh paint. One bedroom efficiency, the woman calls it.

"Fine. I'll take it."

"Don't you want to know how much the rent is?"

"I don't care."

The nearest Ikea is in Centennial, about an hour away. They have everything there from furniture to linens to dishes. Her old loft had been filled with artifacts from digs all over the world. With books. With her family's furniture. It had all gone to Nick when they'd died, and he'd kept it for her.

All gone now.

She goes straight through the departments, buying only the basics. For an extra charge, they'll deliver and assemble the furniture. It can be delivered next week; a workday, but she won't have to be there for that. She can ask General Hammond to have an airman wait for the delivery. That's one of the perks. Shopping takes her less than two hours. The apartment isn't going to be where she lives, after all. She lives at the SGC.

 _In a hollow hill, never seeing the light of day, lives a race of beings like, and yet unlike, humanity, a race whose daily concerns are a world away from those of mortalkind…_

The rest of her purchases -- dishes, towels, linens, lamps -- she loads into her car. By the time she drives back to the apartment and carries it up the stairs, she's running on nothing more than nervous energy.

She's forgotten to buy curtains.

She needs groceries.

She needs more clothes.

#

Saturday night she sleeps on the floor of her new apartment, making a bed from her newly-bought blankets and pillows. The apartment comes with all utilities, so there's light when she wants it and heat, which she needs. April is cold. She hates the cold.

She dreams she's bivouacking offworld.

The grey light of dawn, coming through the uncurtained windows, half-rouses her. She rolls over to touch the body sleeping next to her. It's usually Jack, unless he's on watch.

Her hand comes down flat against carpet.

Jack is dead.

Her throat closes on a sob. There are no cameras here. No one will see if she cries for her dead.

Dead because she couldn't do what Daniel did.

MacKenzie is circling around this central fact like a shark. Trying to drag the admission out of her. She can't see how saying it aloud will help anyone, including her. She rubs her eyes angrily and gets up to make coffee -- she made sure last night that she had the necessities; Scotch, peanut butter, and coffee -- and checks her watch. It's around six. Much too early to hit the stores. She showers, dresses, puts more things away. Eventually she can leave the apartment.

She spends the rest of the weekend shopping to fill out a life she doesn't want.

#

There are six people at the conference table. General Hammond, SG-1, Dr. MacKenzie. Of all of them, only Daniel looks uncomfortable.

"I can't complain about her work here," General Hammond says. "But I need to know. Do I consider putting Dr. Ballard into one of the offworld teams or not?"

"On the surface, she's making a good adjustment to her unusual situation," Dr. MacKenzie says. "There's a lot of guilt there, of course. And more than a little hostility."

"Hostility?" General Hammond says, surprised. "Toward whom?"

"Mostly toward me," MacKenzie says. "She seems to think I'm prying into her personal life."

"Well, aren't you?" Daniel asks, sounding cross.

"It's my job, Dr. Jackson."

"Yeah, well, is she going to snap or not?" Colonel O'Neill asks.

"She isn't, Jack."

"Daniel--"

"She blames herself for the death of _her_ SG-1. That's clear and obvious. It's complicated by the fact that she knows that in an identical situation, her counterpart was able to save _his_ SG-1," MacKenzie says. There's a faint note of triumph in his voice, as if this is a valuable contribution to the sum of human knowledge.

"It was a different situation," Daniel says angrily.

"Was it?" MacKenzie asks blandly.

"Yes! Yes, it was! She knew at the time that the Kelownans had a strong gender-bias. We've talked about it. She accepts that."

"Then maybe you should be doing my job, Dr. Jackson."

Daniel sits back with a stifled snarl of frustration. "You couldn't do mine," he mutters.

"I still need a recommendation, people," General Hammond says.

"She will not fail any task you entrust her with, General Hammond." Surprisingly, it is Teal'c who speaks first.

"Colonel? Major?"

O'Neill waves at Carter, indicating she should go first.

"I haven't seen much of her since we got back from PHX-1138 the last time, sir. But if it was Daniel ... I'd say 'go', sir."

"She'll have to requalify first," O'Neill says. "If she gets through that..." he shrugs. "I guess Teal'c's word is good enough for me."

MacKenzie shakes his head, indicating he thinks they've lost their collective minds. "I can't absolutely disqualify her. But I recommend against it. General, you'll have my full written report on your desk by tomorrow."

The General nods. MacKenzie gathers his papers and leaves.

"Is this a mistake?" General Hammond asks, after the psychiatrist is gone.

"Qualifying just puts her in the pool," O'Neill reminds all of them.

There's a long waiting list for Team assignments.

#

Two months, now. Only a few people on the base outside of General Hammond and SG-1 know that she's The Other Daniel, though she suspects that people wonder about their close resemblance. She has a cover story, and she's stuck to it. In a top-secret facility, people don't ask too many personal questions.

Any day is a good day when she doesn't see them or hear of what SG-1 is doing. When she can bury herself in work to the point she doesn't know what time it is. When she can forget that she's been...

Abandoned?

 _Marooned._

...in a world full of strangers wearing the faces of friends.

#

One morning there's a priority message in her email. Report for Special Group Orientation and Training at 13:00.

She's getting a team assignment?

No.

She might, though. SGO&T is the first step. Combat preparation, mock offworld scenarios, oh, and don't forget the endless _lectures._ It's a four-week intensive course, at the end of which -- assuming she passes -- she can join the pool of qualified candidates waiting for places on teams.

She already knows all this stuff.

Is this somebody's idea of a joke?

Yes, and she knows who, too. Colonel Damn-His-Eyes O'Neill. Probably wants to see if she'll go yelling to General Hammond, demanding special privileges.

She's damned if she will.

#

There are twenty people in the room. A third of them won't make it through the next four weeks, though there's nothing physically difficult involved. Just to get this far, they've won medals, passed tests, been screened half-a-dozen ways. Whatever the outcome, they'll never be able to tell anyone on Earth of what they learn here.

She's the only civilian in the room, the only woman, and the only one guaranteed of a position at the SGC whether she passes or fails, because she already has one. They're always desperate for scientists, and she's more likely to find a slot on a team than the regular military, but there are more grunts than geeks on the teams, so those are the places they usually need to fill. It's the luck of the draw.

Half the men here, brush-cuts and all, probably have at least a Master's in something useful. The SGC doesn't recruit morons.

She _does_ get some special treatment after all. In the second week, while the brush-cuts are getting extra hours on Alien Races and Technology, she gets Guns for Geeks and Basic Self-Defense, neither of which she needs. They're the courses designed to bring the civilian specialists up to speed.

#

She walks into the room she's been sent to. It's just her and a Master Sergeant who looks as if his stomach has hurt since before they learned how to activate the Stargate. His name tape says 'Harrison.' On the table are a number of weapons, both Earthly and alien.

"Good morning, Dr. Ballard. My name is Master Sergeant Harrison. I'm going to teach you about the basic weaponry the Gate Teams use, and what you'll probably encounter on the other side."

She walks over to the table. "M16. It fires a fifty-shot clip single-shot, semi-automatic, and full-automatic. It's no longer used by the Teams, but was used on the first Abydos mission. I know how to fire it. The P90 is the weapon the SG Teams currently carry. Its settings are single shot and full automatic, though it can also fire short bursts on the Automatic setting. It takes a 100-round clip. Civilians are not allowed to carry the P90 in the field. This is the Colt 1911, which is a .45 automatic. It takes a ten-shot clip. It was used on the first Abydos mission, and I believe is still carried by SG Teams 3 and 5. I've fired one. The handgun next to it is a Beretta 9mm pistol. Thirteen-shot clip, current official issue side-arm of the SGC. I'm qualified with that weapon, but I'm not that good. The _zat'nik'atel_ is of _Goa'uld_ manufacture, used by the Jaffa and often used by the _Tok'ra_ as well. One shot stuns, two shots kills, three shots disintegrates. I'm familiar with the zat. Next to that is a _Goa'uld_ ribbon weapon. Nobody without _naquaadah_ in their blood can use one. On the end is a Jaffa staff weapon. It's powered by liquid _naquaadah_. I'm expert with that."

Harrison doesn't say anything for a moment. Then he walks over to the table and picks up the zat and the Beretta. He snaps his fingers. The airman standing by the door begins gathering up the other weapons, packing them back into a storage box.

"Let's go up to the range, Doctor."

#

On the range, they go into a shooting booth. There are two sets of ear protectors and shooting goggles waiting. They put them on -- it takes her a few moments to work the goggles into place over her glasses -- and she proves to Sgt. Harrison's satisfaction that she can fire a Beretta and hit a paper target at a distance which qualifies her to carry the weapon in the field. Barely. She shrugs.

"I didn't say I was good," she repeats, hanging the earphones around her neck. He's had her fire several clips worth of ammo -- at least partly to see her change clips and reload, she realizes.

He hands her the zat. She thumbs it open automatically and fires down the range. A moment later the shredded target coruscates in blue fire.

Sergeant Harrison is regarding her with an odd expression.

"Excuse me, Doctor Ballard, but why are you here?" In Guns for Geeks, he means, not the SGC.

"Because somebody hates me, Master Sergeant."

The airman has brought the rest of the weapons from the lecture room -- with the exception of the staff weapon -- up to the range. She loads and fires each of them in turn: the Colt, the M16, and the P90. On Full Auto, the P90 shreds the sandbags at the end of the range. The destruction gives her a sense of satisfaction.

The demonstration buys her half a day of freedom, which she glories in as if she were being forced to take these courses.

The next morning she reports to her assigned section of the gymnasium for Basic Self Defense.

Teal'c is waiting for her. There's no one else here. He's wearing workout clothes, and holding a set of wooden training staffs.

"I have been told you are expert with the Jaffa staff weapon, Danielle Jackson. I will examine you now to see if this is true."

No possible slip of the tongue goes unpunished. She bows, and reaches for one of the staffs.

"You will require protection," he tells her.

She sighs, and goes to put on the head and chest pads. It takes her a while to find the right sizes.

She comes back, takes the staff. Hefts it. Finds the balance point. They face each other. He's larger, stronger, faster. But he's the one who taught her how to use the weapon. She bows again. Teal'c bows in return. There's no need for talk.

Circling. Feinting. Clash and disengage. She tries for a disarm and fails, but manages to keep her staff; a victory. She retreats. She's lost the element of surprise now, and it will be over quickly.

He blocks her head-blow, but her attack was a feint, a set-up for her strike at the vulnerable symbiote-pouch. She reverses the staff and drives it forward, but Teal'c brings his own staff beneath hers and up, striking the staff from her hands and then spinning his weapon to take her high on the side of the head. She goes sprawling. He's done her the courtesy of fighting all-out. Without the padded headpiece, she would have been knocked unconscious. Even with the protection, she sees stars.

Teal'c helps her to her feet. She shakes her head, still slightly dazed, and spits out the bite protector.

"Against another of your own kind, I believe you would prevail," he says, handing her the wooden staff again.

"I was taught by a great warrior," she says.

Teal'c raises an eyebrow. She hardly needs to draw him a map, now, does she? She goes over to a bench and sits down. The dizziness will pass in another moment or two, but she suspects there will be bruises in the morning. She pulls off the headpiece and picks up her glasses. The world comes into sharper focus. She starts removing the chest protector. The Velcro tabs come free with tiny ripping sounds.

"Daniel Jackson does not possess these skills," Teal'c remarks, as if this might be news to her.

"Daniel Jackson isn't ... short." Short. And effeminate. No. _Female._ Herr Doktor Daniel Jackson didn't have to fight off debauched warlords, degenerate alien princes, crazy bounty hunters, and all the rest of the attentive K-Mart shoppers they'd run into every time they'd gone through the Gate. Sammy had always attracted the polite advanced type of aliens, like the _Tok'ra_ and the Tollen, who'd admired her for her mind, but if there'd been a sex-crazed power-mad barbarian within a hundred thousand light-years...

She wrenches her mind out of the past.

"Daniel Jackson is indeed taller than you are, Danielle Jackson," Teal'c agrees. "Both of you are within the acceptable range of height variation for your respective sexes among the _Tau'ri._ "

She glances up at him. His face is completely expressionless, but she's knows this is some form of subtle Jaffa humor.

"So, do we arm-wrestle now?" she asks.

"We do not. There are others awaiting your presence."

"We just assume I can fire this thing and hit what I aim at?"

"We do, Danielle Jackson."

Too bad.

#

Introduction To Unarmed Combat is a separate track from the SGO&T courses, and it runs constantly. She takes time to shower and change into a fresh set of workout clothes before joining it. She's missed the first day and -- by now -- a half of this session, anyway. Which should just be the orientation lecture and the start of the hands-on work.

The course is being held in another one of the workout rooms. The floor is covered with padding. One wall is covered with charts showing strike zones. The room holds a dozen nervous lab-rats in various states of physical fitness and three instructors, their expressions ranging from bored to actively malicious. Two men and a woman. She recognizes one of the men from The Other Side. Colonel Nathan Stewart. They borrowed him from the SAS. He's rumored to be able to kill with a paperclip.

As she comes in, the female instructor is helping one of the lab-rats -- Feinberg -- to his feet. Feinberg wants to go offworld? Good luck.

"Glad to see you finally decided to join us, Miss..." Colonel Stewart consults his clipboard. "Dr. Ballard."

"I don't think I'm supposed to be here," she says, walking into the room. "I have an Intermediate rating in Unarmed Combat."

"Now where would you have learned something like that?" Colonel Stewart asks. _'Where would you have learned something like that?'_

 _In five years with SG-1._

"I'm afraid that's classified, Colonel," she says. She's gotten very tired of that phrase in the last two months, but she can't tell the truth.

"Well, you're surely not going to expect me to take your word for it?"

Born near London. Schooled at Eton and Oxford. Has a number of languages, including Arabic. The voice never lies.

 _‹"Thy servant stands ready to assist thee in thy quest for illumination,"›_ she answers in Arabic, placing her hands together and bowing slightly. She sees the skin tighten around his eyes, and knows she's just gotten herself into more trouble.

"Why don't you come up here? If you want to test out of Introductory, I'm sure we can arrange something."

She walks up to the front of the class and turns to face the woman.

"Oh, no," Colonel Stewart says. "If you're that good, Dr. Ballard, I'm sure you deserve the best." He sets the clipboard on the table.

"Now, class, Dr. Ballard is going to demonstrate the techniques you will master in the Intermediate course, assuming, of course, you test out of this unit and the next. But perhaps she would like to remove her glasses first?"

Dani takes off her glasses and sets them on the table. There are demonstration items on it -- a rock, a knife, a gun, a baseball bat. She files the information away in hopes she can use it.

Colonel Stewart motions to the other to instructors to clear them a space. A large space. She suspects he intends to beat the living hell out of her. Everything short of broken bones. There's no doubt going in who's going to win this fight -- assuming it's to be a fight with a winner and a loser.

They start with falls, breakaways, and disengages. Simple and correct, and in three minutes they've covered everything in the Introductory course. They move on to Basic.

And out of it in about thirty seconds as his counters become more brutal. She tries for a throw, but he blocks her, and she barely escapes a badly-sprained ankle as he wrenches her foot up high and twists. The move dumps her on her back -- hard -- and she rolls backward onto her shoulders, jerking her foot out of his grasp, scrambling onto her feet and out of the way as he lands just where she was. She's already gone three rounds with Teal'c today and she's tiring. He'll have his hands on her in a minute and it won't be pretty. She ducks under the table and grabs the gun. It's rubber, but she points it at him anyway.

"Game over," she says, gasping for air.

He gets to his feet. Chasing her around the table now would make him look ridiculous, and they both know it.

"The course is Unarmed Combat, Dr. Ballard," he says.

"The course is staying alive," she says. She doesn't lower the dummy gun.

"Put the bloody toy down, duckie, if you would be so kind. Ladies and gentlemen, please note that Dr. Ballard assessed her terrain and available assets and took advantage of both. These are skills that will keep all of you alive in an actual live-fire situation, should any of you progress to the point where you encounter one."

He writes a pass for her into an Intermediate course, where she spends the rest of the day -- and the week -- collecting a spectacular set of bruises and polishing her skills before rejoining the brush-cuts.

#

"You get to be the ringer," Daniel says, coming into her office and closing the door.

The final exam for SGO&T is coming up. The last week has been devoted to real-time training scenarios. She's been excused from the scenarios and given essay questions -- of stupefying inanity -- instead, though nobody among the class knows it. Each team's been told she's off training with another one, and they haven't been encouraged to compare notes.

Her involvement would skew the results too far. They've made at least that much of a concession to who she really is.

"You pulling another Jennifer Hailey?"

Daniel nods, looking pleased.

"Who will I be with?"

"York, Pike, Chambers, and Bukowski. The best of the best."

 _Men In Black_ was always one of their favorite movies...

Back home.

"Pike is crazy, and York can't make up his mind between chocolate and vanilla if you give him half an hour," she says.

Daniel waves this aside. It's not entirely true, anyway; she's just feeling grumpy. "This is going to be ... great."

"So ... another 'Foothold' situation?"

His enthusiasm is infectious. He probably came up with the scenario. She'd always worked on them.

"Better. A sleeper cell inside the SGC composed of rogue NID agents has taken over the base and Gated most of the SGC personnel to an offplanet site where a sun is about to go nova and then dialed the Gate into a planetary anomaly that overcomes the 38-minute limit so no one can dial back in to escape. Your team has to figure out what's going on, overcome the NID agents in the Base, search the armory and find an explosive device to send through the wormhole to disrupt it, discover where the SGC personnel have been sent, and open the Gate again so they can all come home before the sun goes nova."

She thinks about it for a moment.

"You're all going to die. Unless you plan to be a sleeper agent?"

"This time I'm going to be on Chulak with the observation team," Daniel says smugly. "And that's why we need somebody in on this who knows how the dialing computers really work. A couple of the SG Teams will have escaped the initial NID sweep, too. Come on. I'll show you the bomb."

He takes her down to the armory. It's a very realistic-looking bomb.

"You send it through to Chulak," Daniel says. "When we see it come through, we'll know you've completed Part One. The Alpha Site is the nova-world. When you dial that, you're done."

#

He's not sure if Daniel's going to forgive him for this. Sure, he's lied to Daniel before -- and will again if the mission demands it. But he suspects this time may be unique.

Ballard isn't the ringer.

Or to be precise, she isn't the _only_ ringer.

They need an acid test to get MacKenzie to clear Ballard for offworld.

So they're going to make the Live Fire Scenario go wrong -- it always does, but this time they're going to orchestrate it carefully. They're going to do their best to duplicate Kelowna for her.

And see if she can handle it.

He wasn't sure Daniel would go along with it. Daniel's a little too emotionally committed. And he'd needed Daniel to brief Ballard on her part of the scenario, convince her that _she_ was the ringer, the one who would sell the scenario to the rest of the trainees. He trusted Daniel not to give anything away intentionally -- at least if he'd given his word he wouldn't. But O'Neill suspects Daniel's Xerox would guess anyway.

Ignorance is the best defense.

#

Since eleven o'clock this morning they've infiltrated the SGC, (supposedly) figured out what was going on, and interrogated some rogue NID agents. The wormhole is open to Chulak -- Walter opened it just before they got to the Gate Room, because scenario aside, the 38-minute window still applies. She's 'confirmed' that the coordinates lead to the 'planetary anomaly.' She's 'found' the coordinates to the 'nova world.'

They're doing fine until Pike and Bukowski come back into the Gate Room.

They aren't carrying the dummy bomb.

They're carrying a _real Goa'uld_ explosive device. She recognizes it. It's one of the ones she catalogued. And now it's armed. It will take out an area of at least ten square miles.

SG-1 is on Chulak, along with thousands of innocent people.

She takes the stairs down from the Control Room three at a time.

 _"No!"_

They're heading up the ramp. She draws her sidearm; she lost her _intar_ a while back. The handgun is the one she got in the Armory. It fires blanks. All of theirs do.

"Pike! Damn it!"

He stops. Looks at her.

"Where did you get that?" She looks at the counter on the bomb. It has less than five minutes left to run and she has no idea of the disarmament sequence.

"We went up to the Artifacts Room instead," Pike says, sounding pleased with himself. "This should work better than one of ours."

"You can't use that! This is a _training scenario!_ The Gate is dialed in to Chulak! You'll kill thousands of people!"

Four minutes. "Grab her," Pike says to York. "The Doc's snapped under the strain." He starts moving forward again. He's halfway up the ramp.

She aims her gun at York. Pulls the trigger and fires off the entire clip. York recoils in shock, but he's unhit. "Blanks!" she shouts. "They're all blanks! This is a training exercise! But that's a real bomb!"

Pike stares at her in horror, starting to understand.

"We have to get it out of here!" he says frantically. Incredibly, he starts toward the event horizon again, pulling Bukowski after him.

She throws away the useless gun, runs after him, grabs him. He's bigger than she is, and undoubtedly stronger, but she digs her fingers into his neck in an irresistibly painful comealong grip. He drops his end of the bomb. It hits the ramp with a thud. She twitches -- but it doesn't explode -- and drags him away from the bomb.

"Bukowski! Drop it! Clear the Gate Room! _Move_ , damn you! We have to destroy it here!"

Bukowski sets his end of the box down gently and backs away. He looks sick.

Two minutes. She runs back up the stairs, into the Control Room. If the bomb goes off, everyone in the SGC is dead. If they send it through, they kill everyone on Chulak. If she can establish an incoming wormhole, the vortex might destroy the bomb. Sammy would know. She can only guess.

The others follow her. It won't make any difference where they are.

"Close all the blast doors in the Base!" she tells them. She only hopes they know something -- anything -- about these consoles.

Wormhole disengaged. She hits a panic button, calling for evacuation. It won't help, but it's procedure. Klaxons go off all over the complex. The blast-shield begins to lower over the main window. It won't shield them at all.

She dials Chulak again. It doesn't matter what address she uses, actually, but she knows that one off the top of her head. The establishing vortex is what she needs. The Stargate spins, chevrons locking with merciless slowness.

Thirty seconds to detonation.

There's a flare, visible through the bottom of the glass, and she jumps, but it's only the incoming wormhole.

The blast-shield is down now and she can't see the Gate Room. But if the bomb were going to detonate, it would have by now, and it hasn't. She gets to her feet and turns on Pike.

"Idiot -- unmitigated -- grandstanding--" She can't think of anything suitable to call him, but she's sure she'll find the words.

"Hey, Doc, don't hit him. You might develop a reputation."

A voice behind her.

Jack O'Neill. The Colonel is supposed to be on Chulak with the Observation Team.

Pike is looking remarkably calm.

"You were a ringer," she says.

Pike grins, rubbing the side of his neck. She can see the imprint of her fingertips, dark and bloody-looking. "Yes, ma'am."

At least York and Bukowski look satisfactorily sandbagged.

She turns around. Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond are there, along with several military observers she doesn't recognize. She takes a deep breath.

"Do I pass?" she asks levelly.

"I think she passes," the General says. "Colonel?"

The Colonel nods. "But you're still gonna have to send that other bomb to Chulak, you know."

#

She and Pike go and get the dummy bomb, the one they were originally supposed to send.

"So you knew it was faked from the beginning?" she asks Pike.

"No. I didn't know until after we were inside. Remember when you were in the security station on Level 16 with Bukowski trying -- supposedly -- to find out where everyone had been sent and York and I were scouting?"

She nods.

"Colonel O'Neill found me and briefed me then. He told me to substitute the dummy _Goa'uld_ device for the bomb you 'found' in the inventory. He said I was to do my best to get it through the Gate, no matter what you did. But..." He rubs the side of his neck again.

If she'd had a real gun--

If she'd thought of hitting him in the larynx--

If she'd used the knife still strapped to her leg--

They reach the armory. The dummy bomb is as heavy as a real one would be. They wrestle it onto a cart and head back for the elevator.

"You didn't do any of the earlier exercises at all, did you?" Pike asks. "The scenarios?"

She looks at him and doesn't answer.

 _I could have killed you._

She wonders if Daniel knew.

#

They send the 'bomb' through to Chulak without trouble and are trying to dial the Alpha Site -- just the five of them, finishing the exercise, really more for form's sake than anything else, but it's procedure, and she knows the military's a big fan of that. The system is glitching. The iris closes and won't open. In the scenario, the NID has sabotaged the computer system with a virus. There's no NID and no virus, but the exercises are run as realistically as possible.

The iris operates on a palmprint lock. Only the Command Staff's palmprints can override it.

The manual override down in the Gate Room has been 'sabotaged' as well. Or at least -- in the scenario and in reality both -- it isn't working. They look at each other. Dani shuts down the wormhole and checks her watch.

"In ten minutes the sun goes nova in the scenario," she says. "Do any of you geniuses think you can override the lock and open the iris in that time despite the 'NID virus' in the system?"

Bukowski is their tech-head. "There's an override in the backup Command Center on 19 with a digital passcode."

"Go," Pike says. Bukowski and Chambers take off running.

She sits down in the chair again, ready to dial. Suddenly there's a flare of an establishing wormhole behind the iris. The monitors in the Control Room -- blanked for the scenario -- waken to life. She gets up from the chair as Walter slides into it. There's a IDC Code on the screen. SG-9.

"Not due back until next week," Colonel O'Neill says.

"General Hammond, this is Captain Jeffries! Open the iris! We are under attack! We are coming in hot!" Over the radio, she can hear the familiar sounds of explosions and staff-blasts.

The General nods. Walter types in a string of numbers and places his hand over the palm-lock.

Nothing happens.

"Sir--" Walter says.

"Crap," O'Neill says softly.

The Mountain is running on a skeleton crew today because of the training exercise. By the time the techs can get to their stations, SG-9 could be dead. She takes off flying after Chambers and Bukowski. Pike and York are right behind her.

"SG-9, hold your position! Repeat: hold your position!" she hears the General say behind her.

#

It's the end of the Live Fire exercise, of course, the final question on the final exam. And she's taken in completely, even though she's set up a dozen of these things herself. Her team gets as far as heading for the Main Generator with a load of C4 to shut down all power to the Base and force a restart of the systems before Colonel O'Neill stops them.

Which is a good thing.

Because of course this time it's real C4.

#

The debriefing for the exercise is entertaining in a Rashomon sort of way, between what they actually knew and what they were supposed to know at any given moment. Major Carter sits in.

Eventually the question is asked.

"Major, would what Dr. Ballard tried to do with the ' _Goa'uld_ device' have worked in reality?"

Major Carter hesitates. "I'm not sure, General. We know a wormhole vortex disintegrates everything in its path, so it might have worked. I think it was probably the best of the available options."

#

It's six o'clock -- or 1800 -- by the time everything is finished up. There will be final paperwork, of course. There always is. But she's done for the day, and done with SGO&T. The next stop may -- or may not -- be a Team assignment. It should be, but she isn't going to make any assumptions. There are no guarantees.

Daniel's waiting in her office, reading a book. She'd given him a copy of her key when she'd started training, since half his books are still there. He glances up when she enters, sets the book aside. He looks angry and upset.

"I didn't know."

That answers one question.

"It doesn't matter. We all had a great time. I got to--"

Choose between blowing up the SGC and killing everyone on Chulak.

Killing SG-1.

Again.

She's tired. No, beyond tired. Weary. It's been a long time since she ran on that knife-edge adrenaline high of seconds making the difference between life and death.

She misses it.

She's not used to it anymore.

"It was educational," she says.

"I'm going to talk to Jack." Daniel gets up, his face set and stubborn.

"And tell him I deserved special handling?" She wants to comfort Daniel -- it's a bizarre idea, just to begin with -- and she isn't sure how to do it.

"He lied to me."

"No. Daniel. He just didn't tell you the whole truth. I _was_ a ringer. I just wasn't the only one. And if he'd told you about Pike... I would have known."

Daniel looks surprised, as if the thought of that had never occurred to him. But it's true. She's the world's worst liar -- Jack told her that a thousand times -- and Daniel is as easy to read as she suspects she always was.

"And you're okay with that?" He's still angry, but his anger doesn't express itself in physical ways. She'd be looking for things to break. His turns inward.

"Not a lot. But if they didn't think they had to do it, they wouldn't have done it."

"You shouldn't have had to go through that," Daniel says stubbornly, and suddenly she feels as if she's just spun through -- another -- strange distorting mirror. She wonders what it would be like to _be_ Daniel.

 _Really_ be Daniel.

Have always been Daniel.

She tries to dismiss the thought, but it won't leave.

She laughs raggedly. "Yeah, that really cuts it offworld." That wins a smile from him in return. She feels as if she's succeeded at something.

"You look kind of dead," he says, actually focusing on her for the first time. Another victory.

She thinks back. "I think we missed lunch when the rogue NID agents started shooting at us out at the motor pool."

"Dinner?"

"I think I can make it as far as the Commissary."

#

It's shift-change for a lot of the Base, so the Commissary is crowded. They find a table in the corner. Their shop-talk is the stuff of science fiction. Underneath it all, her mind won't let go of the same idea MacKenzie has been returning to for weeks: that Daniel's relationship to Colonel O'Neill has to be different in some profound way than hers and Jack's was.

"Daniel, when you go off with women on the other side of the Gate--" she begins.

He spills his coffee, just a little.

Oops.

"I don't go off with women," he says quietly, setting the cup down. "I'm -- I was -- married."

Sha're.

Her sister.

"I'm... I don't mean intentionally." She means when transplanted Mongol warlords on alien planets try to kidnap him as a concubine? That happened to Major Carter here.

"Never mind," she says.

"Happen to you a lot?" he says after a pause.

She chuckles. The sound surprises her. She can't remember the last time she actually laughed. "Not women. Usually."

"So you were wondering...?" he prompts.

"How it's ... different ... here." How being _Daniel Jackson_ is different.

Daniel thinks honestly about that for a long time. "I'd guess that would have to be ... Jack. Because, you know, there are times when I think the whole thing amuses him a little too much, like on P3X-797 when--" He stops, looking at her face. "And I'd have to say you're going to tell me yours wasn't amused."

In the Land of Light, when she'd fallen prey to the histiminilitic virus that caused her to devolve into a primitive creature victimized by the enclave of larger and stronger males on the Dark Side of the planet, Jack had been so furious that the SGC nearly had to send a second SG Team in to finalize the treaty negotiations with the Royal House of Light. Fortunately, she doesn't remember much of her experience as one of the Touched.

"He wasn't a happy camper," she says simply.

"Yeah, well, sometimes I think he enjoys watching me make an idiot out of myself," Daniel says.

"Well I guess that's the universal rule: we can, or he can, but nobody else can," she says. The pronouns are a little muddled, but there isn't much choice about that.

"And he does," Daniel says in agreement. "And has. And did, especially today. Well, here's to Jack." He raises his coffee cup.

She raises hers, and they touch cups. To Colonel Jack O'Neill.

Alive and dead.

#

In the days after the scenario, her nightmares get worse, as if they're punishing her for some dereliction. She prefers the nightmares to the happy dreams, the ones where she's sure she's home and everybody's alive and they never went to either PHX-1138 or Kelowna. Waking up from those and discovering that they aren't true is harder than watching her friends die again and again.

She doesn't remember most of her dreams, anyway. All she knows is that she keeps getting jarred awake by something the books call 'night terrors' -- a formless dread that wakens her frequently, sometimes several times a night. She doesn't mention that to MacKenzie, whom she's still visiting, though by now the visits are only weekly. She's sure it will pass.

Apparently Daniel never has his threatened showdown with Colonel O'Neill, because she never hears any gossip about it, and SG-1 is a major subject of on-Base gossip. She does hear that she's dating Daniel, but then, she's also heard that she's his cousin, his sister, and an Asgard clone. Also his daughter, artificially-aged by nanite technology.

She doesn't see Daniel himself. He's offworld again, apparently. It's for the best. She needs to keep her distance from SG-1.

Almost three months now.

A hundred days is the prescribed period of mourning on Edora.

#

 _"...until you do."_

The nightmare -- the same nightmare she's had for the last week, and she's damned if she's going to MacKenzie with it -- wakes her up, and she realizes she's fallen asleep at her desk again. Not that anyone would notice. Dr. Ballard isn't a people person.

She pushes her glasses up onto her forehead, rubbing her eyes. The Gate Room. The Furling.

 _"If you will not complete the pattern satisfactorily, we will not speak to you until you do."_

The pattern.

Completing the pattern is returning her to her own time and place.

 _"...until you do."_

The Furling's words echo in her head.

Oh, god.

 _"Until you do."_

It had been right there in front of them the whole time, and they'd all missed it.

 _Until._

It was another riddle. The Furling had been offering them a second chance. There had to be _another_ way to 'complete the pattern.' She checks her watch. 0230, but the SGC is a 24/7 facility. She thinks SG-1 is back onworld. If they are, Major Carter might still be here.

#

She hasn't seen Major Carter since they debriefed from the SGO&T Graduation Day Scenario. She doesn't actually want to see her now. But if anyone can solve a riddle involving interdimensional travel, it's Sammy's _doppelganger._

It's almost three o'clock in the morning, but Major Carter is still in her lab. Looks like she's got a new toy, too.

Dani knocks quietly on the doorframe.

Major Carter looks up. There's a pause. "Dr. ... Ballard."

"Major Carter. I'm sorry to bother you. Can I, um, talk to you?"

"Sure," Major Carter says, sounding wary. "I'm not getting anywhere with this."

Dani comes over and looks down at the object on Major Carter's workbench. " _Goa'uld_ ," she says unnecessarily.

"And this time we've even got the technical manual," Major Carter says, perking up and gesturing at the crystal plugged into her computer. "But it's going to take weeks to get it translated properly."

Dani looks at the screen. Rows of _Goa'uld_ symbols fill it. "It's a fairly simple dialect," she says tentatively.

"Well, sure. But it's full of technical terms, and--" Major Carter stops.

 _And Daniel can't read a tech manual._ Well, _she_ hadn't been able to either -- at the beginning. But Sammy and Mr. T. had spent painstaking hours working with her on the basics of _Goa'uld_ engineering, explaining how the machines worked -- explaining how _machinery_ worked -- until she could work back from that to a fairly solid grasp of _Goa'uld_ technical dialect. And Jack had suggested that the _Goa'uld_ were the people responsible for writing the programming instructions on his VCR.

She blinks back memories, and decides not to offer her help. It would look too much as if she were trying to worm her way into the Alternate SG-1's good graces. The thought makes her cringe inwardly. How about not?

"I was ... look, it's about the Furling."

Now Major Carter really _does_ look wary. Dani plows on. "I don't want to bother you--" _since you're all getting on with your lives so nicely_ "--but everything we know -- knew -- _know_ \-- about the Furlings indicates that they're extremely _precise_ users of language. Now, that day in the Gate Room, the Furling said that it would not speak to you -- here -- _until_ \-- you had completed its pattern satisfactorily. I don't think it would have said that if there was no way for you to complete its pattern."

She waits.

"Which would involve...?" Major Carter asks. She's interested, though. Dani can tell. She chooses her next words with care and an utter lack of sentimentality.

"Originally it would have been for me to go back with the Furling to my Kelowna to the day of the explosion. But that can't be the only answer, because we can't arrange it. It won't be back until we've -- _you've_ \-- completed its pattern. But it's said there _is_ a way to complete it."

"So what _is_ the answer?"

Major Carter looks relieved that Dr. Ballard isn't still contemplating suicide. Actually, that hasn't been an issue for a long time now. But if Dani has a choice, she'd rather be alive in a universe where Jack is dead than alive in one where he looks at her as if she's an unwanted stranger.

If those are her only two choices.

"I have no idea," Dani says heavily. Go home to her own future? Even assuming they could manage it, could the answer be that simple?

"The quantum mirror that we discovered on P3R-233 permitted interdimensional travel. In the quantum mirror, interdimensional points are more-or-less temporally equivalent. It allows you to travel across 'Nows' -- at least between mirrors -- not to other 'Whens.' But ours was destroyed. Let me think about this," Major Carter says.

"Sure," Dani says.

She goes back to her office and spends the rest of the night preparing a long memo on _Goa'uld_ technical dialectic forms for Daniel. Somehow that's not the same as talking about them to Major Carter.

#

Three months.

"Wake up."

Someone's shaking her. She sits up, wincing. Fell asleep at her desk again. She looks at the clock. 0930. She should have been down in C&T an hour and a half ago, but SG-14 had found a book. An actual paged book; it looked as if it were written in a variant of Goidelic....

"Daniel."

"I checked and you hadn't signed in, so I decided to check your office. I knocked, but..."

"I was asleep." Stating the obvious.

"You know, you should, um, go home more often," Daniel says, smiling down at her.

"Oh, sure, home." _It's not like I have a life. Or even a team assignment. Maybe it would be better if I did. Getting shot at, bad food, unfriendly aliens..._

"Well, I just... If you want to talk about it..."

About what? That she spends more time here than General Hammond? That she's been known to hide in supply closets to avoid being in the same hallway with Colonel O'Neill? That she's finally succeeded in shaking the dust of Dr. MacKenzie from her feet?

That she's been avoiding Daniel and she doesn't know why? He never said anything about the memo. She didn't sign it. She slipped it into the papers on his desk. Maybe he never saw it.

"Daniel? Did you wake me up to see if I wanted to _'share?'_ " Talking to Daniel is dangerous. It tempts her to believe she's alive. And that would actually hurt too much.

Oh, god, coffee. She needs coffee.

"Well, no, actually. General Hammond has called for a briefing in two hours and you're supposed to be there. I thought you might not check your email first thing in the morning, because _I_ don't check _my_ email, and..."

 _And Jack always has to come get you and drag you to the Briefing Room._

 _Don't think about that._

"About what?"

"The Furlings."

#

"...the question is, is it a good idea to pursue contact with these people?" General Hammond asks.

The question's already been around the table once. They've watched the Gate Room tapes of the Furling's visit, too -- not the most fun she's ever had, but she's done less pleasant things around this table, or a version of it. They all have. The Furling doesn't show up on film, but they can hear every word spoken. She makes a note to get a copy of the tape.

Daniel has given them what he knows -- and guesses -- about the Furlings. His take on them is fairly close to hers, which shouldn't surprise her. Major Carter has pointed out that if the Furlings are actually willing to cooperate and share their technology even as much as the Asgard have, it would be to Earth's benefit.

"Or they could be like the _Tok'ra_. Or the Tollen. And we all know how helpful _they_ are. Or even the Aschen. In which case -- with all due respect, General -- we are much better off not knowing them," Colonel O'Neill points out.

She hasn't said much. Being here isn't just awkward, it's surreal. But she can't help butting in now. "With all due respect, Colonel, the Furlings are one of the Four Great Races, along with the Asgard, the Ancients, and the Nox. It's unlikely they'd be like the Aschen."

"They put Daniel in a _bottle._ Okay, they could be like the Nox. Great folks, the Nox."

"Jack, I think you're being unfair." Daniel this time. "The Nox--"

"--had very limited contact with Earth, nothing later than the Neolithic period," she says firmly. Jack hates -- hated -- the Nox, and apparently Colonel O'Neill does too. If they start talking about the Nox, this meeting is never going to get anywhere.

Everybody stares at her. Including Daniel. Dammit, is she about to fall into another one of those black holes where their two pasts don't match? She knows Daniel has met the Nox. Why shouldn't she visit the Nox? She's an anthropologist.

"Could you explain that statement, Doctor?" General Hammond says.

"I believe all four of the Great Races have visited Earth. We have proof of three: the Asgard, the Ancients, and the Nox. We know that the Nox visited Earth -- at least _my_ Earth -- because when I visited Lya and Nafrayu last year, I asked them about it, and we unearthed some corroborating petroglyphs here. They stopped during the New Stone Age, just previous to the _Goa'uld_ arrival."

Hasn't Daniel ever told them this? No, he's looking just as puzzled. But at least he's interested.

"Visited the Nox," Colonel O'Neill says. "Did you pack a lunch?"

The Nox are vegetarians. Jack ...wasn't.

Isn't.

"So what about the Furlings?" Daniel asks. "What would they have to do with Earth?"

"Start at the beginning," Colonel O'Neill says with feigned enthusiasm.

"There are four 'Great Races'," she says, taking him at his word. "It's my contention that all of them visited Earth at various times. The Ancients, so far in prehistory that if ... you ... didn't have the Antarctic base, there would be no indication that they'd ever been here at all. Their influence on our legends is too diffuse to isolate. The Asgard, up to the present day. Throughout history, we've mistaken the Asgard for elves -- Asgard sightings are the source of many of the Fair Folk legends in mythology, at least in the West -- but they're best known to us -- now -- as the Norse Gods, in which _personae_ they fought the _Goa'uld_ dominion of Earth. In that guise, they're regarded as universally beneficent gods."

"The Asgard are not gods," Teal'c says, just to make sure everybody's on the same page here.

"Of course not. I'm sure you don't want the complete details of how the relationship between the _laandvolk_ and the Aesir and Vanir differs from that of the Eastern Gods of antiquity -- most of whom were impersonated by _Goa'uld_ at some point--"

"That would be a nice change," she hears the Colonel mutter under his breath.

"But my _point_ is that the Furlings also visited Earth frequently," she says, talking faster. "And until comparatively late in our history -- possibly as late as the 11th century in the Old World, and conceivably as late as the 14th or 15th century in the New World. I base this on the congruence between the various Earth mythologies, the offworld legends I've found in the cultures of other races, the few iconographic artifacts we recovered -- which were supported by the imagery on PHX-1138, by the way -- and of course, the Furlings' own behavior." She manages to get past that without a bobble, and is immensely pleased with herself. "When they appear in our mythology, they--" oh, god, if she says 'Trickster Archetype' the Colonel may just fall out of his chair. "Um. They're not as much the good guys as the Asgard, but they're far from being evil. They test Mankind, and when he is deemed worthy, they give him gifts."

"So if we're worthy, they'll give us gifts, like the Furling said in the Gate Room?" Major Carter says doubtfully.

"Exactly!" Daniel takes the mythological ball and runs with it. "Jack, the Trickster Archetype is found in all cultures -- Raven, Coyote, Hermes, Prometheus, even the original Aramaic Satan was a Trickster type."

"Satan?" the Colonel says, sounding bored and baffled. "Met him."

Daniel ignores this. "The Trickster always takes an active interest in Mankind's welfare, and is always responsible for giving him gifts that advance his civilization. But to gain them, Man has to solve riddles or pass tests to prove his worthiness first."

"So you feel that pursuing -- or attempting to pursue -- a relationship with the Furlings is something that we want to do?" General Hammond asks, wading manfully through the wodge of Introduction to Comparative Religion.

"Yes," Daniel says firmly.

"If Daniel's right, it could be to our benefit," Major Carter says.

"So... what?" Colonel O'Neill says. "We phone them up?" He's looking at her now.

"We solve its riddle and complete its pattern," she says. "If I'm right, once we've done that, the Furlings should resume contact with ... us." _You. Us. Whatever._

"If it involves sending you back into the middle of a nuclear explosion, I'm thinking we're not going to be doing it," Colonel O'Neill says. His tone is light and disinterested, even bored. She isn't fooled. If that's her answer, this is the end of the discussion.

"No," she says, staring fixedly at the top of the table. "In the Gate Room, when Daniel questioned it, the Furling asked if you wanted to play again. The solution can't be the same one it initially proposed. That's simply not the way their culture is designed, from everything I've been able to figure out. They work in spirals, not circles." She concentrates on stating the problem in small words. "This is a different puzzle, with a different solution. It's just ... similar."

"'Similar'," the Colonel says, sounding exasperated.

"Solving the original puzzle wouldn't be a challenge for you, according to the Furlings. You already know the answer."

"So we don't have to do that any more?" Colonel O'Neill asks hopefully.

"Actually, you do," she says apologetically. The Colonel slumps down in his chair and begins playing with a pen.

"I do not understand," Teal'c says. "The solution the Furling proposed was to return you to your own time and place, just previous to the _naquaadriah_ bomb exploding on your own Kelowna. Now you say that this is not the answer."

"If I'm right, you _still_ have to return me to my own time and place. But I'm not interested in suicide, and the Furling knows you don't want to let me die, so there has to be another right answer. Another destination -- that I'll survive -- that the Furling will also accept as my 'own time and place'."

"Oh, for the love of Mike," Colonel O'Neill groans.

"No, Jack, she's right," Daniel says. "It's a riddle. Solve the riddle and we know where to send her to complete the Furling's 'pattern.'"

"Leaving aside the problem of finding another one of those ...quonset mirrors," Colonel O'Neill says.

Daniel waves that problem aside.

"So -- Daniel -- where's home?" the Colonel asks, even though they haven't got a quantum mirror and no hope of getting or building one.

She wonders what he'll say.

"A place the Furlings would accept? Abydos, probably." He winces slightly, and looks at her. "It's still there in your universe."

It's been destroyed here.

"It was when I left." It's not even a joke. Is it still there now, or has Anubis destroyed it there as well, two years in her world's future? If they do find a quantum mirror, is 'Now' the proper time? The Furling specified home and proper time and proper place: three requirements. And all incredibly subjective. Who decides when the criteria are met?

"Very well, ladies and gentlemen, we'll leave it there for now," General Hammond says, getting to his feet. "Dismissed. Dr. Ballard, if you'd remain?"

She gets to her feet, refusing to watch as SG-1 leaves the room. But she can see their reflections in the Plexiglas wall across from the briefing table.

"Dr. Ballard?"

She turns her attention quickly back to General Hammond.

"Captain Sandford was injured last week on a mission to P43-918. Dr. Brightman tells me he can't be re-certified for offworld duty. His position is yours, if you want it."

He's offering her a Team assignment. Sandford means SG-7 here.

"SG-7 is a good team." And damned unlucky -- they've gone through more archaeologists than Spinal Tap has drummers. The rumor back home was that Major Hightower shot them himself. "I'd be honored, sir."

General Hammond hesitates. Obviously there is something more to say.

"I understand that you want to go home, Dr. Ballard. But you have to understand ... this puzzle of yours could take years to solve."

"Yes, General. I understand that. And I'll do my best for you while I'm under your command."

"I can't ask for anything more. Dismissed."

#

She walks slowly back to her office. She'll probably have to meet SG-7 sometime today. Maybe she can pull up personnel files on them, see what she's in for. Thank god she'd never known them well on the Other Side. She hadn't known Sandford at all; the last archaeologist on SG-7 she remembers had been Horace Bateman.

But ... offworld. Again! At last! And now this SGC knows there is still a Furling riddle to solve. The General has decided that contact with the Furlings is worth pursuing. That has to count for something.

Her steps slow. Stop.

But the Furlings _are_ talking to _her_ SGC.

Right now.

#

It's been almost two months since he sent SG-1 to Kelowna. They'd missed their scheduled check-in. When they were ten hours overdue, he'd sent a MALP. Apparently it didn't even survive long enough to send back any signals. It took them 48 hours to prepare an armored probe capable of withstanding severe conditions, and by the time it was ready, they couldn't get a lock on Kelowna's Stargate at all.

Jacob went looking for his daughter -- by ship -- immediately. He'd sent the SGC pictures of a crater over five hundred miles in diameter centered on Kelowna City. The planet's entire atmosphere was radioactive; whatever had happened there had triggered a chain reaction in veins of _naquaadah_ buried far below the planet's surface.

Nobody could have survived that.

SG-1 is dead.

A bizarre paradox: there's a mission report in his file indicating that SG-1 -- safe, alive, whole -- has yet to make a rendezvous with the future. Perhaps they'd all gotten sloppy because of that, assuming somehow that this guaranteed them some kind of immortality.

Obviously it did not.

Over the course of his career, George Hammond has sent men -- and women -- into harm's way many times. And nobody said Gate travel is without risk. But Kelowna was supposed to be a relatively peaceful mission, to a world that had rediscovered its own Stargate only a few years ago. What in God's name happened there?

General Hammond resigns himself to knowing he will probably never know. But he misses SG-1's special talents keenly -- all the more since, ten days after the Kelowna mission, the Furlings finally made contact with the SGC. They'd been one of Dr. Jackson's special obsessions, and General Hammond only wishes she'd been here to see them in the flesh.

They brought gifts.

Hyperdrive, shield generators, cloaking devices, Earth-to-space missiles. All powered by a new element the Furlings called _naquaadriah_. The Science Department said _naquaadriah_ was apparently an unstable variation of _naquaadah_ , and vastly more powerful.

He wished Major Carter had been here to make sense of it all. The Pentagon had been pressuring him for years to pull her out of the field and put her in a research position somewhere behind a desk. And Dr. Jackson too, for that matter, arguing that their skills were wasted in the field.

Wasted, no. SG-1 had pulled Earth's chestnuts out of the fire a hundred times precisely because both of those women were in field positions. And neither one of them would have given up following Jack O'Neill wherever he led them, as if the man were some sort of Pied Piper for the highly-educated.

He could have ordered Major Carter to comply, of course. Dr. Jackson, he felt sure, would simply have walked out. And they'd been immeasurably valuable right where they were.

But they'd also been at risk, and it had been inevitable that some day their luck would run out. He only wishes it hadn't been when it did. He could use them both. Especially now, when the Furlings are offering them their entire defense against the _Goa'uld_ wish-list on a silver platter.

Why?

#

SG-9 is the Diplomatic Team, the closest thing to a textbook First Contact Team that Earth possesses. In the five years the Stargate Program has been running, they've conducted delicate negotiations with hundreds of alien cultures -- and a few alien races as well.

Colonel Hopewell has never had to deal with anything like the Furlings.

Usually when it comes to obtaining advanced technology, it takes months of negotiation, treaties, promises of trade -- and a long hunt for desirable trade goods -- before they get anywhere. The Furlings -- a man and a woman who said their names were Coyote and Raven -- had simply walked into the SGC and opened their goodie bag.

"It is the custom of our people, when we are offered great gifts for reasons we do not understand, to ask what the giver wishes in return. I mean no disrespect to your ways in asking this," Hopewell says. Again.

As always, the statement seems to amuse Coyote and Raven highly. They lean away from the table, whispering together. It would be easier if he could actually _see_ them. All he has is dreamlike impressions of tall incredibly beautiful creatures. Raven is dark-haired. Coyote's hair is silver, though perhaps not with age. All of this is guesswork. Dani's guesses would be better, if she were here. If she were still alive.

After a moment, Raven leans forward. "Shall I tell you a secret?" she asks throatily.

"It would gladden me greatly," Colonel Hopewell says. "Secrets are shared between friends. And I hope we can become friends."

Raven's eyes glitter with mirth. He's sure of that, and doesn't know how he knows. The Furlings are only blurs to the cameras; the human observer seems to collect stronger, though subjective, impressions. At least their voices record clearly and precisely.

"Indeed, we are already friends, though you are young and innocent still. You do not think we bring gifts, but commodities requiring _payment._ " The emphasis she places upon the word makes it sound as if it comes from a foreign language.

"I mean no offense," Hopewell repeats. Yet again. He keeps his voice neutral and even. _They do not pay me enough for this,_ he thinks to himself.

"I will set your mind at ease. No I will not. All the treasures we bring you are _paid for._ "

Again, that strange emphasis. Do the Furlings not use money in any form? It's possible. Steve will know; he's their anthropologist. Hopewell can talk to him after their latest session; he'll be watching it on the closed-circuit. Seeing Colonel Hopewell and two blurs.

"Dr. Danielle Jackson has paid for them all. Indeed, she is paying still, in good measure." Raven sounds so tolerantly amused that it takes a moment for her words to penetrate.

"Wait. Excuse me. You said Dr. Jackson is _alive?"_

"All things live," Raven says happily.

 _Great. Here we go again._

"Yes. Forgive my ignorance, but you do speak of us as a young race. I only wish to understand. When you say that Dr. Jackson is alive--"

#

"Any progress, Major?" General Hammond asks.

"Well, sir, not progress, exactly. But something unusual did come up today. I'm still trying to pin down exactly why the Furlings would come to us and simply _give_ us all these things. And today the female, Raven, apparently decided to be a little more forthcoming. She said that Dr. Jackson paid for these gifts -- and is still paying for them." _I'd rather deal with the Asgard High Council. No, I'd rather deal with the System Lords. All of them. At once._

General Hammond sits silently for a long moment. "That would mean that Dr. Jackson is still alive."

"Yes, it would, sir -- if the words 'alive' and 'now' mean the same things to the Furlings as they do to us."

General Hammond sighs and nods.

"I understand, Major. But ... if they do have Dr. Jackson -- and the rest of SG-1 -- I want you to make it a priority to find out how to get them back."

#

Major Hightower is all right -- if you like vicious sexist bastards with poncy Back Bay accents.

He'd called her 'dear lady.'

 _'I do hope you'll be able to keep up with us, dear lady.'_

She desperately needs to kill something. She can't ram her offworld qualifications down his arrogant throat because she isn't supposed to have them. On paper, tomorrow will be her first offworld mission.

 _'I think I can guarantee that, Major.'_

Captain Sherwood had cleared his throat in a way that indicated he was trying not to laugh. Sergeant Christopher had done her best to look completely blank, in the fashion of good airmen everywhere.

 _'Dear lady.'_

Dear god.

"Jack, I can't do this," she whispers to her dark empty office.

 _'Come on, Indiana. Don't fold up on me now.'_

She can hear him saying it. He'd teased her, bullied her, badgered her. He'd trusted her with his life, and she failed him. He's dead, and she'd never told him.... She doesn't know what she would have said, but whatever it was, she can't say it now.

Because he's dead.

Even if she manages to get home, he'll still be dead.

 _Where is home? Home is at Jack's side, waiting to go through the Gate. Can you send me there, Major Carter?_

The lights in her office come on suddenly. She spins around. Daniel is standing in the doorway. He's the only one who walks in on her like that, as if being Alternate Her gives him special privileges. Whatever he sees on her face makes him draw back for a moment, then come in and close the door.

"I came by to offer my congratulations," he says, digging his hands deep into his pockets. "SG-7."

"Thanks." _Gee, I wonder how long Hightower can keep his latest archaeologist alive?_ "Major Hightower was..."

Apparently Daniel already knows what she's going to say. "He just needs to get to know you."

And apparently Daniel knows Hightower better than she knew Hightower's counterpart on The Other Side.

"He will." And if Hightower's lucky, the ensuing stay in the Infirmary -- for whichever of them -- will be short.

"And there's a--"

"Party." There always is, when a new member joins one of the Teams. Punch and cookies in the Commissary for all SG teams on base. A celebration to offset all the funerals and memorial services.

"I just wanted to be sure you'd--"

"Be there with bells on. Agog with the wonder of going offworld for the very first time. Thrilled that I, the humble and insignificant Dr. Dana Ballard, have been chosen for an undertaking of such cosmic significance." The bitterness in her voice could etch glass.

"I know this isn't easy for you," Daniel says quietly.

She takes a deep breath. This isn't his fault. It isn't even actually his problem. He's being kind. He's actually nicer than she is, she suspects.

"It will get easier," she says. _Liar._ "I'm sure that Major Hightower and I will get along just fine."

#

There's a cake. She's impressed. Cake is a step up from cookies. She's been to a lot of these parties. This is the first one there's ever been for her. She circulates, greeting everyone and accepting congratulations. She knows the part she's supposed to play. After three months in C&T, she knows almost everyone here -- as Dr. Dana Ballard -- personally. She still isn't 'one of them,' of course. After all, she hasn't gone through the Gate, yet.

She should have made the connection, when Daniel came to her office. Did she think they'd stay away? It would look damned odd if they did.

SG-1 is here.

The party is more of a strain than she thought it would be. She isn't used to being the center of attention this way. There are only about thirty people here but she hasn't spoken to anyone except on SGC business in over three months. She sees Lt. Pike. He's with SG-15 now. He got a Team assignment right out of the, well, _gate._

"Dr. Ballard!" He comes over and greets her with the cheerful camaraderie of mutual survivors of Hell Week. "You made it!"

She transfers her cake plate and coffee to one hand in order to shake his with the other. "SG-7."

"That's great. You'll be okay. Gating isn't so bad. Don't worry."

She realizes after a moment that he's trying to reassure her. About going through the Stargate. _Her._

"Thanks. I see Major Hightower. I'd better..." she leaves the sentence unfinished, leaving him to fill in the blanks, and moves off.

As she approaches Major Hightower, she catches the phrase 'lady archaeologist' in the conversation and decides on more coffee instead.

#

"Congratulations." Major Carter comes up to her while she's at the coffee urn. She smiles. It seems genuine enough.

"Thanks, Major."

"You know, my friends call me Sam."

Dani knows the Major sees her flinch.

"I never thanked you for helping Daniel with the translation on that technical manual. He told me about those notes you gave him. It was a real help. We cracked the whole thing in a couple of days."

She nods, unable to think of anything to say. Major Carter touches her companionably on the arm and moves away.

Not Sam. That is not Sam. Sammy is dead.

#

She slips out of the party a few minutes later -- without, thank god, having to actually come face-to-face with Colonel O'Neill -- and goes to change for home. It's nearly the end of June in the outside world now. She wears khakis and a safari jacket, a t-shirt with a print of the Rosetta stone on it. Birkenstocks. Backpack. She'd fit in on any college campus on earth.

She's even managed to buy a car, an amazing feat of logistics considering how much time she allows herself off-Base for shopping. It's another Jeep, of course. At least it isn't orange. It takes her a major effort some nights to keep from trying to drive Daniel's vehicle home.

She checks the corridor carefully before she leaves the Women's Changing Room. It's empty. She wonders what she was expecting. She makes an efficient dash for the elevator and gains the surface without incident.

The light is flashing on her answering machine when she gets back to the apartment. Two messages. If it were something vital, she would have been paged, or they would have called her cell. She deletes the messages without listening to them.

#

 _"I'm sure that Major Hightower and I will get along just fine."_

She held out that hope to herself all through the morning briefing. The man can't hate having women on the teams. Christopher is a woman. And Hightower is the best of the best (as they say in the MIB) or he wouldn't be here.

She's half right.

Hightower doesn't hate women.

Hightower hates civilians. And scientists. And a civilian scientist on his team -- who also happens to be a woman, and obviously, as a female civilian, prone to hysterics -- is apparently just about the worst thing that Major Hightower can conceive of.

They're going to P9X-430 on a routine recon. He sends her back out of the Gate Room just before they are about to go through to get a helmet. He makes her leave her quarterstaff behind. He says it's non-regulation. She's carrying a full pack plus recording equipment. A quarterstaff makes a difference in her ability to cover ground. The General has okayed it.

Team leaders have the final say.

#

"Are we moving too fast for you, dear lady?"

The Major's overridden every opinion she's expressed, until she wonders why he's even brought her along. He ignores her requests to take a side-trip to take a look at a site that might contain ruins, and barks at her when she stops to film it from a distance, hoping the film can be enhanced later to give her a real clue as to what might be there. He explains she's here only in case they encounter natives. As if she's nothing more than a glorified translator. They've covered at least ten kliks since they came through the Gate, and the Major hasn't stopped moving once. He's undoubtedly the kind of man who thinks that visiting fifteen European cities in ten days counts as a leisurely vacation.

And Daniel had known that when he'd congratulated her. He'd known all of Hightower's charming little quirks in advance. She knows it. And he hadn't warned her. Her back hurts. Her neck hurts. She hates the helmet; she always did. She decides to hate Daniel, too, while she's at it. Group rates.

"Why no, dear Emory. But it is sweet of you to ask."

That brings a stifled laugh from the Captain. Sgt. Christopher has a sudden coughing fit. All the pollen in the air, no doubt. Without another word, Major Hightower turns around and picks up the pace.

They reach the far point of their sweep by local noon, four hours out of the Gate. All they've seen are trees, meadows, flowers -- all very pretty, but of course they haven't stopped to take any samples -- and a few more indications -- in the distance -- of what might be ruins.

Of course they haven't taken a closer look.

They stop to rest and eat in a grove of trees at the edge of a meadow. The meadow's completely filled with white flowers; the effect is like looking at a snowfield. She's desperately glad of her heavy-duty antihistamines; and pops a few extra pills just to be sure. The flowers extend all the way up to the base of the trees.

She drops into the shade of the nearest tree as soon as Hightower gives the order to halt, unclipping her pack from her vest and pulling off her helmet. The crushed flowers give off an intense perfume, as intense as roses. She has no idea what they are. Earth-descended? Most of the _Goa'uld_ colonies -- which contain descendents of Terrestrial flora and fauna as well as colonies of humans -- are on planets where _naquaadah_ is found, but neither the MALP or the UAV reported any signs of _naquaadah_ radiation in the preliminary survey.

The other three are sitting together. Comfortable. At ease.

Shutting her out.

She starts to rummage through her pack for an MRE and gives up. She's too tired to eat, anyway. She leans her head back against the tree and falls asleep.

She startles awake what seems like only a few seconds later. The position of the sun has shifted measurably. She looks at her watch. She's been asleep for two hours. Her mouth is dry from the extra medication.

She sits bolt upright.

The others are gone.

She swears feelingly, switching to Russian where obscenity has real flavor, then to German for the jawbreaking consonants. They've left her.

No.

General Hammond would have their skins for that. Even better, _Colonel O'Neill_ would have their skins. Along with choice portions of Hightower's anatomy. The first rule of the SGC is that no one is left behind. Ever.

So ... they have to be around here somewhere.

And this is undoubtedly Hightower's idea of a hazing. Scare the Gate-virgin by leaving her all alone on an alien planet and see how loud she screams. They've got to be somewhere close by. Probably gathering the botanical samples for the mission.

She thumbs her radio. "Sierra-Golf Seven-Niner, this is Sierra-Golf Seven-Four. Come in?"

Silence. Static. She tries Sherwood and Christopher. Same response.

If this is a joke, it's getting out of hand. What if she actually _were_ in trouble? This is an alien planet, and all she has is a pistol with two spare clips.

"Sierra-Golf Seven-Niner, this is Sierra-Golf Seven-Four. Answer back, I say again."

More silence. Is the receiving channel open or not? Oh, if they think she's leaving this out of her report, they're so wrong.

"Sierra-Golf Seven-All. Having failed to establish radio contact, I am calling a Code 14."

Code 17 is a suspected _Goa'uld_ in The Mountain. Code 9 is a Foothold situation. Code 14 is SGC Personnel Missing/Unable to Respond.

 _That_ should fix Hightower's little red wagon.

She should head directly back to the Gate and phone home. She's called a Code 14, and as far as she knows, she's alone here. By the mission schedule, SG-7 isn't supposed to Gate home for another four hours. Just enough time to get back if she hurries. But General Hammond will call once they're thirty minutes overdue. Her radio's well within range of the Gate. And she's sure that the others must be around here somewhere.

 _If I were a hashak, where would I hide?_

She gets to her feet, clipping her pack into place, and walks away from the tree. Meadow with white flowers. Grass-covered tumuli in the middle distance, maybe with ruins. Too far away to go for a prank, though. Mountains in the far distance. Trees behind her. A nice dense hardwood forest, perfect for playing Robin Hood. She starts there.

She spends an hour working through the forest in a semicircle around SG-7's last known position.

Nothing.

She comes back to her starting place. She's marked the tree, even left them a note. The note is still there.

She starts out across the meadow. She's only taken a few steps before she stops. The flowers only come up to the top of her boots. There's no way they could be hiding here. She looks back. The flowers have sprung up behind her. Durable little suckers. If SG-7 _had_ crossed the meadow, they'd leave no trace.

The sun is heading west. If she leaves now, she'll be lucky to reach the Gate by dark. Face it, she'll be lucky to _find_ the damned thing, even with her GPS.

She tries her radio one more time. Nothing. This is no longer a joke. SG-7 is in trouble. Protocol says when you run into something like this, you head straight for the Gate and dial home.

Jack O'Neill says that when people go missing, you look for them until you find them, dead or alive. From the nearest tumulus, she'll be able to see a good deal of the surrounding area. She might spot them. There are flares in her pack. They might spot her.

She starts walking.

#

"Major Hightower, this is General Hammond. You are thirty minutes overdue. Report."

At M+10 hours her radio crackles to life just as she reaches the foot of the nearest tumulus. The flowers stop at the foot, just as if some mad gardener planted them here. She grabs for her 'Talk' button.

"General Hammond, this is--" a moment of paralysis: she's forgotten her fake name "--Dr. Ballard. The rest of SG-7 is missing." Her voice wavers slightly.

"Missing? What--"

"O'Neill. What the hell happened?" Over the radio, it isn't Colonel O'Neill's voice. It's Jack's. She bites her lip.

"We stopped for lunch six hours ago, about twenty kliks from the Gate. I fell asleep. When I woke up two hours later, they were gone."

Everything she should have done differently comes crashing in on her in the silence that follows. Not fallen asleep. Headed immediately for the Gate. Never taken a Team assignment at all.

"Where are you?" General Hammond again. The Colonel is probably looking for a leather strap to chew through.

She peers at her GPS and dutifully reads off the coordinates. "I've been looking for them. I couldn't raise them on the radio." _And you thought they were playing games. So you didn't call for help when it still could have done them some good. You've killed them, just the way you killed SG-1._ "There's some high ground up ahead. I think there might be ruins there. I'm going to climb up and see if I spot them."

"Negative." O'Neill again, and apparently he hasn't found that leather strap. She can hear how furious he sounds, even with the poor quality of the sound through her radio. "You stay _right where you are,_ Dr. Ballard. Do you understand me? We're sending a team."

"Yes, Colonel, I understand you. Sierra-Golf Seven-Four out."

The link goes dead.

Half an hour to scramble a team. Three hours to get here -- the tumulus is closer to the Gate than the edge of the meadow had been -- maybe four; by the time they come through the sun will be setting, and they'll have to move across unfamiliar country in the dark. But she still has two hours of light. Enough time to keep looking. She might even be able to get up to the top, look around, and back down before they get here.

Okay, so it isn't the first time she's disobeyed orders. She starts up the side of the tumulus.

Damn Hightower for making her leave her quarterstaff behind, anyway.

It isn't very high, but from the top she has a splendid view back down the valley to the Gate. She can even see the Gate if she uses her binoculars.

There are ruins here. Cyclopean blocks of stone -- marble? -- weathered by centuries of exposure. She has no time for them now. Looking up the valley, she also has a splendid view of the rest of the meadow. And the forest.

And a ... _house_ ... in the forest?

That hadn't been on the survey.

She can barely make it out through the trees. She hadn't gotten anywhere near it when she was searching the forest -- it's a couple of kliks, at least, from where she'd been looking. But definitely of artificial construction.

They're there. She knows it. And it would be stupid beyond permission to go walking in there without waiting for backup. She turns around again just in time to catch the flash of an incoming wormhole up the valley.

Sighing, she climbs back down the side of the tumulus to wait.

#

General Hammond has sent SG-1. Of course. And they've made it up the valley in two hours. They must have come at a dead run. She gets to her feet when she sees them, turning her light on herself. It's full dark by now. Colder than SG-7 had come prepared for. Nice stars. A full moon. Two full moons, in fact, filling the valley with a bright silvery light. The flowers close at night. The meadow is almost black.

"You want to tell me again what happened?" Colonel O'Neill says without preamble.

"We came up the valley. We stopped over there--" she points at the other side of the meadow "--at the edge of the trees to eat. We'd made good time up the valley. From the position of the sun, it was local noon, or near that." She grits her teeth. "I fell asleep. When I woke up, they were gone."

"And that didn't strike you as unusual enough to head back to the Gate and dial home?" Colonel O'Neill asks. It's Jack's voice. Jack at his most poisonously sarcastic.

"I thought they might be gathering samples of the local flora." It's a flat lie, but it's better than the truth. "We hadn't stopped for samples on the way up. I tried to raise them on the radio, but none of them answered. So I went looking for them."

"Yeah, you two are definitely related," Colonel O'Neill says to nobody in particular. "And you didn't think it was in the least odd that they'd just walk off and leave you?"

 _I thought Hightower was just trying to scare me._ No, they definitely aren't going there. "I think I know where they might be. In the forest over there, there's a house. Some kind of a structure, anyway. It didn't show up on the overflight."

Colonel O'Neill looks around. Nothing is visible from their position. "And you know this how?"

"You can see it from the top of the hill." Since he's going to have her killed as soon as they get back anyway, she might as well tell him the truth.

"I told you--"

Major Carter clears her throat.

"Yeah. All right. We might as well start there. Everybody got your night goggles?"

He reaches into his jacket and hands her a pair. She slings them around her neck. They don't need them here in the meadow, but the forest is dark.

"Let's go."

They start off, fanning out in a wary pattern.

"And Ballard? Lose the helmet."

She pulls it off and hangs it from her belt.

#

The structure is dark and quiet. Wooden. Windowless. Ornamental carvings over much of its surface.

"Russian," she whispers to Daniel. "Eighth century."

He nods, looking as puzzled as she feels.

"There were ruins at the top of the tumulus. This isn't consistent with them." The ancient Rus built in wood, not stone, which is why so little of their work survives.

"What were--?"

"More Greco-Roman, at first guess. But much older than--"

"Quiet," the Colonel tells both of them.

They circle the building cautiously. No windows. Only one door. Colonel O'Neill motions them all to stand back, then strides up to the door and knocks loudly.

"Yoo-hoo? Anybody home?" No answer. But the forest feels as if it's listening. He tries the door. It doesn't open. "Daniel?"

"It looks like an eighth-century Slavic chief's house. We know the _Goa'uld_ were taking people off Earth as late as the eleventh century. But Doctor, um, Ballard says the ruins she saw on top of the tumulus were inconsistent with a Slavic derivation." He looks at her, passing the conversational ball.

"I didn't examine them closely. But probably Classical Mediterranean. The tumuli are probably artificial as well, and neither culture built tumuli."

"Those big hills," Daniel says helpfully, as Jack looks determinedly blank.

"Celtic," Dani agrees. "And Meso-American, of course."

"Is any of that going to get us inside?" the Colonel demands plaintively.

"The door should be barred from the inside. You might be able to lever the bar up with a knife," she says.

When the bar clatters to the floor on the inside of the house, the sound makes all of them -- except Teal'c -- flinch. By now they're all on edge; there's just something about being here -- in the forest, at night -- that's spooky, whether you believe in ghosts or not.

The Colonel pushes the door open.

They're staring into ... a witches' cottage. It looks like something out of an old woodcut, and it takes Dani a moment to understand that the proportions of the room they're seeing don't match the proportions of the chief's house they've just broken into. There's a hearth -- but they saw no sign of a chimney outside -- herbs drying in the rafters. Moonlight shining in through open windows. But the chief's house didn't have windows. And even if it did, it's _dark_ in the forest.

Colonel O'Neill moves in, walking like a cat crossing fresh butter. Major Carter covers him. Daniel follows, looking for clues. What is this place, who built it, when? Information that can save their lives.

Dani stays by the door, staying out of their way, gathering what information she can from there. The interior walls are carved in a traditional pattern of animals common to a number of ancient northern cultures. She looks higher. The ceiling is covered in a pattern of stars. She starts to pull out her camcorder, and stops as she hears Major Carter's voice.

"Sir."

She looks back down. Hightower, Sherwood, and Christopher are lying in front of the hearth. Their packs and weapons are gone. O'Neill steps back to cover Major Carter as she kneels down quickly, checking for a pulse.

"They're alive," Major Carter says.

At her touch they stir, wake, start to sit up. Confusion is replaced by concern-verging-on-horror when they see SG-1.

"What--?" Hightower says.

"We can discuss that later, Major," Colonel O'Neill says. "Right now I think we'd better get back to the Gate."

#

They're in the middle of the meadow, moving fast. SG-7 doesn't have night-sight gear, but now that they're out of the forest, it won't slow them down. It's almost as bright as day out here. Major Carter's on point, with SG-7 behind her and the rest of SG-1 following.

The ground begins to shake. Rhythmic pounding, like giant footsteps. Dani looks behind her. They all do. The wooden house is following them. It's sprouted an enormous pair of chicken legs and it's chasing them.

"Baba Yaga!" Dani yelps.

"Teal'c!" Colonel O'Neill shouts.

Teal'c fires. The bright flash of the Jaffa staff weapon blinds Dani for an instant. Major Carter runs back to Colonel O'Neill. They both begin firing their P90s. Teal'c fires again. Again. The noise is deafening.

The hut catches fire. Splinters fly from it. But it keeps coming. There's no point in running. It's faster than they are. And there's no cover. It's too far away for her to shoot, and there's nowhere to run. It's going to land on them in a minute.

 _It will stop if you know the right words_ , her mind insists. _But that's a fairy tale for god's sake!_

No time to second-guess herself now, and what can it hurt? She says the words. Screams them at the top of her lungs. Daniel catches on quickly, and there they are, the two of them, shouting at it in Russian in the middle of a firefight like a couple of lunatics.

The hut falls to the earth with a crash that shakes the ground. The door swings open invitingly.

"Grenade!"

Even before the hut settles to the ground, Colonel O'Neill lobs a couple of grenades through the open door, and they run. Five seconds, then down. She lands on top of Daniel, rolling off him to seek the lowest available point.

Light and fire.

 _Don't think of that don't think of that don't think of that--_

The sky rains splinters. Her ears are ringing. Daniel helps her to her feet. They look at each other.

"Coincidence," they say, nearly in chorus.

"Carter, tell me we didn't just kill a house with giant chicken feet," Colonel O'Neill demands.

"Yes, sir," Carter says dutifully.

They head out, reforming again. SG-1 takes point this time. SG-7 follows. Dani falls back to SG-7; it's where she belongs now, after all. This is the first time she's seen SG-1 all together in the field. It's odd, like looking at yourself in a mirror.

Except--

Major Carter is up where _she_ always walked, just behind Jack -- Colonel O'Neill. And Daniel is back where Sammy walked, in front of Teal'c.

She watches them. Major Carter stumbles on a patch of uneven ground, and the Colonel puts out a hand to steady her -- just a quick touch. She sees Major Carter smile. She feels one of those unsettling epiphanies, seeing SG-1 from the outside, seeing how _different_ this world is from hers.

Major Carter and the Colonel?

Major Carter and the Colonel.

Oh, god, no. That's ridiculous. Even without the fraternization guidelines, Sam-I-Am is the last woman on Earth Jack would be interested in that way. She reminds him too much of his ex-wife Sara. Dani's seen pictures of Sara. She and Sammy could be sisters.

Jack respects -- respected -- Sammy. He loves -- he _loved_ \-- her the way he loves Teal'c. But this isn't Sammy and Jack. Things are different here.

Her mind refuses to leave the revelation alone, conjugating relationships the way she would conjugate verbs. She loved Jack. It's safe to admit it now. She'd loved him.

Major Carter loves her Colonel in more than a line-of-duty way. Call it women's intuition if you must, but Dani is sure of it. Sam-here loves Jack-here.

And O'Neill? Does O'Neill...?

 _If Carter loves O'Neill, and Dani loves Jack; if O'Neill ... loves ... Carter, did Jack...?_

Her mind shies away from completing the thought. Even if she finds out the truth about Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter, it won't answer the question about Jack.

And besides, it's too late for it to matter.

They reach the Gate without further incident.

#

Doctor Brightman finds a residue of pollen on Hightower, Sherwood, and Christopher that none of the rest of them have on their clothes. It can't be from the meadow flowers. They all rolled in those. The only theory that anyone can come up with is that the other three were taken because they were awake and she was ignored because she was asleep. Hightower, Sherwood, and Christopher don't remember anything useful. Hightower says they never went out of sightline of her while they were gathering samples. It could be true.

They don't remember being taken.

Exposure to weird alien psychoactive drugs is an automatic 72 hour removal from active rotation and daily check-in for tests. Even if they all feel fine, they aren't going to be going anywhere soon.

They finish the after-mission debriefing. She sticks to the facts, and leaves out her opinions. Hightower sticks to his story. Now come the detailed reports. And a minimum of three days off the line.

She likes writing reports, actually. And maybe they'll get a chance to go back and take a real look at the place. And the ruins.

#

"Are you sure that's what really happened?"

"No, Daniel, I lied to General Hammond just for the hell of it." He's in her office again. She'd throw him out, but he's brought coffee. She wonders if _he_ knows the truth about Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill. She mustn't ask. He mustn't tell.

"I just can't figure out--"

Oh god. She's done the same Columbo act a thousand times. He won't go away until she satisfies his curiosity, because she wouldn't either.

"--what took me so long to call for help? Daniel, I was four hours away from the Gate. We were supposed to be _back_ in four hours. I could either cut and run, or I could go looking for them. You do the math."

"God, you sound just like Jack."

She drinks her coffee. She doesn't sound anything like Jack. She isn't anything like Jack. Jack wouldn't have gotten SG-1 killed. Jack wouldn't have been the only survivor.

"You thought they'd be somewhere nearby. Somewhere easy to find."

She looks up. Daniel is leaning over her, staring down into her face as intently as if he might be able to read her thoughts.

"What do you want, Daniel?"

"The truth."

"I told the truth at the debriefing. The truth is going to be in my report."

"No it isn't." He sounds very sure. "You stayed because you thought they were hiding from you, not because you thought they were in trouble."

Shared pain. It occurs to her suddenly that people have treated Daniel the same way they've treated her. As an overeducated annoyance. Someone underfoot and in the way.

"Jack would never do that," she blurts out without thinking. Never pretend to abandon a member of his team, even for a joke.

Daniel leans forward. He's so close now she can feel his breath on her mouth. All she has to do is straighten in her seat, and their lips touch. It's hard to say which of them is more surprised.

He starts to pull away as soon as he realizes what he's doing, and long before she's ready for him to. She puts a hand on the back of his head and pulls him back; he yields to her easily. His hair is soft. The skin beneath it is warm. He tastes of coffee.

It isn't as if this counts. If they had sex, it would be more like masturbation. Wouldn't it?

"Da-- _ulp!_ "

They spring apart. Major Carter is standing in the doorway, looking horribly embarrassed. Dani wonders which of them Major Carter was looking for.

"Sam," they say in chorus. "Major Carter," she corrects herself. It isn't Sammy. It's Major Carter.

"Colonel O'Neill is looking for Daniel," Major Carter says. She's got her game face on. This is the Air Force. Don't ask, don't tell. Major Carter backs out into the hall.

Daniel follows her, not looking back.

#

Dr. Ballard spends her mandated downtime catching up on paperwork and handling overflow work from the other teams. It's her job. She loves her job.

 _My name is Dana Ballard and I have no life._

Certainly not one where someone might kiss her.

It isn't as if she's a nervous virgin. She lost that distinction at seventeen. She'd never thought she was in love, not with any of them. Not until Simon Gardner. She and Simon kicked that to death pretty thoroughly over her refusal to put Simon before her work. She actually hadn't completely noticed they were over until the day Simon brought his new girl into the archives. Marian Fordham had been all makeup and perfume and high heels, and could barely read simple hieroglyphs.

Simon had looked … triumphant. And guilty.

Simon is the _Goa'uld_ Osiris now. But that happened years later.

When she and Simon broke up she swore she wouldn't let something like that happen again. It was easier -- safer -- to live a monastic life. No ties, no entanglements.

On Abydos, both she and Kasuf had assumed she'd become Skaara's concubine, once he'd taken a suitable wife. Such a connection was obvious. Traditional.. It would protect her after Kasuf was gone, and she was fond of Skaara.

She's been to the dark side of the Land of Light.

When Shylac addicted her to the sarcophagus on P3R-636, he'd turned her every which way but loose, and she'd … enjoyed it.

All of which is very much beside the point.

Refusing to think about things is a skill she's honed to perfection over the years. She uses it now. PX9-430 is a more immediate puzzle. Solving it is her job. Dana Ballard's job.

Why was Baba Yaga on PX9-430?

In Russian fairytales, Baba Yaga is a wicked witch. But that's only her last and most diminished aspect. To the pagan Rus, she was a Trickster Goddess, who gave gifts if you solved her riddles. Among the goddess's favorite gifts was a mirror.

Dani can't help but feel that there's a message here meant only for her. Trickster gods with mirrors.

SG-1 is at the top of the rotation. It's a week before she sees Daniel again.

Neither of them refers to what happened in her office.

#

"Raven is adamant about the fact that Dr. Jackson is alive," Colonel Hopewell tells General Hammond. "But I'm not sure we're really communicating. I've tried her on the rest of SG-1. She seems to know exactly who they are. And she says they're 'less alive.' Sometimes she says they're 'potentially alive,' and just for a change of pace, 'unmanifest'." He rubs his forehead in frustration.

"They're speaking English, but they're not thinking in English," Dr. (Major) Stephen Saunders clarifies. "I'm not entirely sure the Furling see time and causality the same way we do. A lot of cultures don't. The Sarawak--"

General Hammond holds up his hand, derailing what promises to be a lengthy anthropological footnote. "If Dr. Jackson is alive, tell them to produce her," he says.

"I've tried that," Colonel Hopewell says, sounding as miserable as an Air Force Colonel would ever allow himself to sound. "They say that she has to come back by herself."

"What if we tell them they can have their gifts back; we want Dr, Jackson and the others instead?" General Hammond asks. The Joint Chiefs will have his stars -- and his head on a plate. The mission of the SGC from Day One has been to discover offworld technology to aid them in the fight against the _Goa'uld_. The Furlings are offering them their entire wishlist. Risking that deal is playing ducks and drakes with his career.

But this is all too easy. And they don't leave their people behind. No matter where they are.

"I can tell them that," Colonel Hopewell says, sounding uneasy.

"Go ahead, Charlie. You like a challenge," Major Saunders says.

#

July. She will have been here four months exactly on the 12th. Her birthday is the 8th. It falls on the weekend, for which she's grateful. There's nobody to take notice of it here.

When she arrives in her office on Monday, there's an Egyptian footed bowl on her desk, and a silly birthday card. Unsigned.

Daniel.

She hasn't exactly been avoiding him, but she's disturbed by him. She feels something for him. She doesn't know what. And she knows she doesn't want to feel anything at all.

But she feels guilty being rude to the person who's been kindest to her here. She puts it off as long as she can -- two hours -- and goes down to his office.

He's packing for a mission. She stands in the doorway, watching. Eventually he notices her and smiles.

"Thanks for the…" she gestures back toward her office.

"Well, it was looking kind of barren in there."

At home her office was like his is here: filled with artifacts from a hundred missions and various treasures of Earth as well. Here, her office contains nothing but books and files and whatever items she's working on at the moment.

"I forgot your birthday," she says. It's the truth, but he seems to think she's making a joke.

"You can make up for it," he offers. "Feed my fish?" He holds up a set of house keys.

"You're going to be away for a while." Not a hard guess.

"Going to play games with the _Tok'ra_."

 _Colonel O'Neill must be thrilled._

"It's a spare set."

"I'll try not to lose them."

"Well--"

"Daniel, we are _late._ " Colonel O'Neill brushes past her, picks up Daniel's pack, dumps the last few items on the table into it with no consideration for packing, and heads out the door with it at a brisk walk.

"Hey!" Daniel chases after the Colonel and his pack. "Jack! Give me that!"

"Now, Daniel, you know how much it costs to keep the lights turned on around here…"

Their voices -- still bickering -- fade into the distance. She walks over to his desk and picks up the keys, then turns out the lights in Daniel's office and walks out, closing the door behind her.

#

SG-7 averages three missions a week. Hightower is still a pain in the ass, but Robbie and Allison have warmed up to her a bit. She pulls her weight. She doesn't complain.

She's been allowed to stop wearing the helmet on missions. He still won't let her carry her quarterstaff. Maybe someday. Sure. And Hell will freeze rock-solid first.

#

Five months. It's August outside the Mountain.

SG-7 is coming in hot: Jaffa ambush on P3X-4259. General Hammond opens the iris at the last minute. Hightower and Christopher go through first, carrying Sherwood between them. He's taken a direct hit from a staff weapon. He's a big man. It takes two of them. A medical team is already standing by.

She follows them through a second later. The Gateroom is full of SFs in full armor and she can hear Hightower shouting for her. She has a Jaffa staff weapon in her hand, firing back through the Gate. She was covering their retreat. She couldn't lift Sherwood, and somebody had to watch their six.

Her uniform is on fire.

She drops the weapon and falls, tumbling down the ramp.

Agony drags her back to consciousness. She sees a familiar ceiling go by. _They're taking me to the Infirmary._ She feels the heaviness of morphine, but it only clouds her mind, and does nothing for the pain.

Where's Jack?

He had to be right behind her. He's always the last one through the Gate. If she's been hit, what happened to him?

"Jack!" She tries to get off the gurney. She has to go back. They can't leave him there. _"Jack!"_

Two of the nurses are holding her down. She hears someone call for sedation. It's not Janet. Where's Janet? Someone's calling for Dr. Ballard. She doesn't know who he is.

 _Janet?_

She has to go back. She can't leave him there. Burning.

Darkness.

#

She wakes up in the Infirmary. The lights are dimmed for night. She manages to see that much, in a long blink, but she can't keep her eyes open. She has the dry disassociated feeling of too much sedation. She's been hurt. (How?) She drags memories into consciousness, but they're fragmented, nonsensical. She forces her eyes open again. Someone is sitting in the chair beside her bed. She feels a spasm of relief -- he made it, Jack made it -- before she realizes it's someone she doesn't know.

She looks at him, confused.

"Doctor Ballard? Dana?"

"Major Hightower." Her voice is scratchy, but when she names him, her memories fall into place with a sickening thud. P3X-4259. SG-7.

"Glad to see you're awake. We were worried about you. Dr. Brightman says you're going to be fine. You just have to take it easy for a few days."

He's just set a new record for the most consecutive sentences addressed to her during their entire two-month association.

"Captain Sherwood?"

Robbie didn't make it. Major Hightower's face says it all.

"I'm sorry." Her tongue feels thick. She's thirsty. There's a cup of water with a straw beside her bed. He helps her drink. It hurts to swallow.

"You saved our lives back there. I just wanted to… Thank you."

 _I didn't save Robbie._

"I think I'll go back to sleep now," she whispers.

"I'll see you later." Briefly, awkwardly, he touches her shoulder in valediction.

Allison Christopher comes to see her the next day, bringing chocolate walnut cookies -- 'Dana's' favorite -- and news from the real world. Allison isn't hurt. That's usually the way when you're up against a Jaffa cadre. You're either fine or dead. 'Dana' was lucky to take nothing more than a glancing blast to the left side. Her ribs were cooked -- they've got a new ceramic armor here that saved her life -- but most of the damage came from her burning uniform.

Allison looks faintly puzzled as she gazes down at her. Dani wonders what happened back on 4259 to make Allison look at her that way. It seems like too much trouble to ask, and her memories of the firefight are still fragmentary.

She makes arrangements for someone else to take care of Daniel's fish. She hopes they're still okay.

Robbie's funeral will be at the end of the week.

#

She's allowed out of the infirmary to attend the funeral. At least there's a body to bury. She refuses a wheelchair. That would attract too much attention. It's a quiet military funeral.

She has to lean on Hightower's arm to make it to the gravesite. Her legs are still shaky, and the bandages encasing her burned ribs make her torso feel as if it's dipped in fire. The sultry weather doesn't help. Percodan lends a haze of unreality to the situation. But she's damned if she's going to let him see her cave.

"You don't give up, do you, Ballard?" he says to her, low, under cover of the service.

 _'Come on, Indiana. Don't fold up on me now.'_

"No." It's hard to breathe.

All of the SG Teams who are on world attend. SG-1 isn't there.

#

Two weeks medical leave, then she'll need to be recertified for offworld missions. She goes home; rediscovers the joys of solitary drinking. If Brightman knew she was mixing Scotch with the pills she'd have kittens.

But Brightman isn't here. And it blurs the edges of everything nicely.

 _I don't want Dana's life. I want Dani's life. It's my life, and I want it back._

All of her books are at the SGC. But her laptop is here, and her files are on it. She spends her time doing research.

#

 _Fairy gifts._

The nightmares are worse now, as if Robbie's death has torn down another wall she'd built. She isn't sleeping much, or well. But she's gotten a lot of work done.

 _Fairy gifts. We've been looking in the wrong place. Again._

Every culture has legends of the Fair Folk: heartless, manipulative, tricksey. They pose riddles and offer gifts, but woe betide the mortal who accepts a Fairy Gift. In all the legends, it leads only to disaster. To get anything from the Fairies that you actually want, you not only have to solve their riddle, but insist on paying for what they offer you. If you take something without paying for it, the gift will inevitably turn on you somehow.

But successfully paying for a Fairy Gift is the hard part. In all the legends, the Fairies did their best to avoid payment, because that would allow them to turn the gift against the recipient.

She has to tell General Hammond.

She sits back on her couch with a groan. She can't tell General Hammond. The General Hammond who desperately needs this information isn't here. He's in _her_ universe, and Charlie and Steve and the rest of the Real SG-9 are probably already deep in talks with the Furlings, who are selling them an elaborate bill of goods marked "Free Gift."

Which will be a disaster.

She has to get home. She not only has to get home, she has to get home to _before_ the Furlings contact her SGC.

Which would be… Oh, god. _When?_ She gets up unsteadily and pours the rest of the bottle of Scotch down the sink. This isn't helping.

If 'now' here is tied to 'now' there, her information is exactly two years, five months, and ten days too late to do her SGC any good, because the Furlings would have contacted the SGC just after Kelowna, where SG-1 died. There'd be no reason for them to delay. But if the point had been to negotiate with _her_ SGC, and not _this_ SGC, why wasn't the transfer temporally equivalent? Why send her to an alternate _future?_ If she'd come here to the same point in time here as it was there, it would have been…

It would have been on the same day that Daniel Jackson lay dying in the infirmary of radiation poisoning. And Ascended.

 _They didn't want me to arrive at that 'when.' So they brought me across, and forward, to a point here where Daniel was alive again -- oh that just sounds weird -- because the whole point was for me to chase Daniel, and find him._

Was finding Daniel the point? The Furlings could have accomplished the same thing by sending her here to before this SG-1 went to Kelowna. They'd suppressed her memories of Kelowna, after all. It wasn't as if she could have warned the Alternate SG-1.

 _Except that I got my memories back when we found Daniel. And I could have warned them then._

If she had, this SG-1 wouldn't have gone to Kelowna -- or, if they had, Daniel wouldn't have Ascended. Because he wouldn't have died. Would that have mattered?

She doesn't know.

But -- either way -- the game with her SGC is over. It's two years in the past. Now the Furlings are playing against _this_ SGC. That must have been their intention -- or hope -- all along. So the Furlings wouldn't transfer her to or from a point where she could bring this SGC anything it could use. And the Furlings wouldn't risk playing while Daniel was Ascended.

Why?

 _This is tied up with the Ancients. The Ascended. Somehow._

More untestable hypotheses. Interesting, but not terribly helpful.

Frustrating, in fact.

#

Her medical leave is over. She's allowed back on Base. SG-1 is still offworld. She knew that anyway because as soon as she was well enough to drive she called and got Daniel's keys sent over to her. She's spent more time in his house than in her apartment. His fish are doing fine.

She isn't certified for offworld yet -- SG-7 is making do with one of the floats when the mission actually requires her specialty. Lieutenant Timothy Shawcross has replaced Captain Sherwood; she meets him the first time she sits in on a briefing. Even if she can't go, she still needs to know what her team is doing. Shawcross is young, adorable, not fresh out of the Academy, but almost. He regards the entire idea of offworld travel with a combination of wide-eyed enthusiasm and steely patriotism that she's sure is going to get old really fast.

When they're introduced, he regards her with a kind of dubious awe, as if she's The Legendary Dr. Ballard.

She used to get that a lot -- The Legendary Dr. Jackson -- but she's gotten used to the idea of being incognito in the last several months, and now it's just unsettling. She did _not,_ for crying out loud, hold off an entire contingent of Jaffa shock troops with a captured staff weapon (she's heard entertaining, if nearly-unrecognizable rumors about her last mission) so that SG-7 could make its escape. All she did was buy them a few seconds after Sherwood was hit to get through the Gate. Not that it did Sherwood any good.

But P3X-4259 seems to have made some peculiar difference to everybody here. It's as if she's crossed some invisible line and is somehow more _here._

She doesn't know whether she likes that or not.

#

Sally Brightman stubbornly refuses to certify her for offworld until the burn is healed to her satisfaction. Dani splits her days between physical therapy, paperwork, playing catch with what the other teams bring in…

And a private research project.

As a member of an SG Team, she has clearance for a number of reports and files that she couldn't access as a mere member of Anthropology and Linguistics, and never thought she'd need when she was first searching for Daniel Jackson. Now she brings up everything she can find on _naquaadriah_ explosive devices, plowing doggedly through the incomprehensible technical language. She wants information on core overloads and time to detonation, and can't tell whether it's there or not.

Home to the right time and place. That's the Furling's riddle. She's starting to think she may know what the answers are.

Home is her own universe.

The right time is _before_ the Furlings begin their negotiations with General Hammond.

If she goes back to her own universe, she can't -- in the sense of mustn't -- go back to a point before the Furling removes her. Even if it's possible. But how long is it between the time the radiation became lethal in the lab on Kelowna -- and she was removed by the Furling -- and the time of the detonation of the bomb?

Is the right place Kelowna?

Is there a window of opportunity?

Where, _exactly,_ were Jack, Sammy, and Teal'c that day?

Is there still a chance to save the rest of SG-1?

She sits back in her chair, dazed with the sheer insanity of what she's thinking. And the hope.

They're dead.

She accepts that they're dead.

"I do, Jack," she says aloud.

The ghost in her mind doesn't believe her. "You always were a stubborn pain in the butt," she says to him.

He doesn't argue with that. _Being stubborn keeps you alive,_ he says.

"I know."

The point is that the Furlings have brought Fairy Gifts to her SGC, and General Hammond mustn't accept them. She has to warn him.

How?

If she goes to General Hammond-here with this, he _will_ think she's snapped. Right now the information -- which is only a hypothesis on her part -- is useless, anyway. To do anything about it, she'd need a quantum mirror and a time machine. She doesn't have either one. And if she suggests that the first step to solving the Furling's riddle is going back to her Kelowna to rescue her SG-1…

She decides she won't tell anyone about this yet.

#

On her first mission after she's finally recertified, she sees that Shawcross is wearing a helmet. As she steps up to the foot of the ramp, Hightower hands her her quarterstaff.

"You'll be wanting this, Doctor."

She guesses Hell just froze over. "Thank you, Major."

It's now almost six months to the day since she's been marooned here.

#

"A-a-a-nd, we're back."

He must have just come through the Gate. She checks her watch. 2200. She should have gone home … oh, about five hours ago. From the smirk on his face, Daniel knows this already, and knew he'd find her in her office anyway.

"You _really_ need to get a life," he says to her.

"Hey, your fish are alive. Don't push your luck." It's absurd how glad she is to see him.

"You know what I missed? Actual food."

The _Tok'ra_ prefer concentrates. He'll have been living on MRE's. "Don't expect to find any in your refrigerator. I threw it out."

He sighs. "I'm going home. You should go home."

"Keys?" His spare keys are in her locker with her clothes.

"Tomorrow."

Their paths don't cross until lunch the next day, and by then, apparently, he's heard about P3X-4259. They share a table.

"I'm sorry about Captain Sherwood," he says.

"I ought to be used to this by now," she says without stopping to think. She never has to worry about what she says around Daniel. It's not like MacKenzie, where she has to guard every word. Or everyone else she works with, where she has to be careful to pretend to be … somebody else. Daniel knows exactly who she is. Still, he winces slightly.

"It doesn't get easier, though. Does it?"

She shakes her head. "I liked him. I think we'll beat Shawcross into submission soon, though."

'We.' _Her_ team.

"Settling in with Major Hightower?"

"He just needed to get to know me."

Daniel smiles reminiscently. "He's probably afraid you'll shoot him if he says something you don't like."

"It's time he had an archaeologist who could fight back."

Major Hightower passes their table. "Doctor. Doctor. I'm certain it will come as a charming surprise to you, Dr. Ballard, to discover that we have a mission briefing at 1430. You'll want to be certain to pack your wooly stockings." He walks on.

"For a briefing?" she asks the empty air.

"Ah… I think you're going to Thule," Daniel says.

#

They're doing an entirely routine -- and mercifully quick -- survey of an ice world. It's named Thule -- Daniel tagged it after the initial MALP contact, and it's always nice to have a name instead of a string of letters and numbers. Dani thinks Thule could be particularly interesting because for some reason, they've always discovered a lot of Ancient artifacts on ice worlds. Either the Ancients liked ice or they had consistent bad luck predicting climate changes. They're all wearing their warmest Artic gear, but the mission is still only going to be two hours, and that's pushing it.

They don't find anything. She's arguing for an extended UAV survey as they head back to the Gate, but they're expensive, and there's no real reason to send one. Too many planets, never enough time.

But why put a Gate on a planet if there's nothing here and never was? Major Hightower agrees with that, at least enough to say she should include the question in her report, but neither of them thinks it will come to anything.

When they get back to the Gate, it doesn't work.

She dials Earth, the Alpha site, every address she can think of. Any place is better than here. It's high noon at what they think is local summer, and it's twenty below zero. The temperature will undoubtedly drop at night.

None of the addresses work. The DHD stays dark. They can't dial out. Nobody dials in, either.

Either Major Carter _or_ Sammy would be taking the Gate apart to find out why while Teal'c managed to build a fire out of ice cubes. Allison isn't in Sammy's league -- she's a nuts-and-bolts jackleg engineer -- but she turns up the MALP's heating elements to keep them all warm while they wait to see if they're going to hear from the SGC. That runs its battery down fast, but at the moment, survival is more important. They have shelter halfs in their packs, but they're not enough to protect them in this weather.

After half an hour, Hightower orders them to find better shelter. The problem doesn't look like it's going to go away soon, and even with the MALP for heat they're going to die if they stay out here in the open.

Dani thinks there might be caves in the ice wall. It's the only geographical feature for miles, a sheer cliff rising straight up out of the ice. It's their only chance for shelter: they're standing on an ice mantle at least a hundred feet deep (and why isn't the Stargate buried?) but they have no way to cut blocks out of it to make a shelter.

The ice wall is three kilometers away.

They leave the MALP behind. It would slow them down far too much if they took it with them. Even so, it takes them an hour to get there, with the temperature dropping all the time. They're all freezing by now. Hypothermia isn't far off.

It takes another hour to find a fissure in the ice large enough to hold all of them. They go as far back as they can, block the opening with two of the shelter halfs. The temperature slowly rises to around freezing. They have rations for two days, a little Sterno, their blankets and their shelter halfs. Standard survival kit for a day, at most, in these conditions.

At night, the temperature outside drops fifty degrees.

#

Dani wants to go back and try the Gate again the next morning. Major Hightower overrules her, saying the best thing for all of them to do is sleep and conserve energy and body heat while they wait for rescue. They're all huddled up together -- she's the smallest, she loses body heat fastest. They've put her in the middle. When she wakes up later, Hightower is gone. Allison tells her he's gone to try the Gate.

When he gets back, he says he tried all six of the most likely addresses she'd tried the day before and the DHD didn't do so much as blink. A six klik walk in arctic conditions after spending the night in a below-freezing ice cave have taken their toll. He's cold and they can't warm him up. The four of them huddle against each other, too cold to talk. They've turned off three of the radios to conserve power. They try the fourth at two hour intervals. Nothing.

It's a long night.

Their Sterno runs out in the middle of the second day. That means no more water. They eat ice chipped from the walls. They've stretched their food as far as they could, but in an environment where calories mean the difference between life and death, excessive rationing could be tantamount to suicide. Major Hightower makes the call. Dani's glad it isn't her decision.

He's running a steady fever now, and Captain Shawcross has finally admitted to pain in his feet. She and Allison get him to take his boots off. He doesn't want to. They all know what they're going to find.

If it were warmer in here, Dani's sure she could smell the gangrene.

On the third morning, Allison insists on making another try for the Gate. If nothing else, she says, she can bring the MALP back, though it means spending longer out in the cold, because the MALP moves slowly. There should be enough battery power left even after moving it to heat water, and they can use it to block the cave entrance further, conserving warmth. They can't keep eating ice. It wastes body heat, and by now the Major is delirious. He won't eat the ice at all.

Hours pass. Allison doesn't come back. The MALP is slow, but not that slow.

Dani bullies Shawcross into coming out with her to look for Allison. He's vague and feverish, and partly she's afraid that if she leaves him behind he might simply wander off. He's too bright-eyed. Flushed. Blood poisoning. They've given him everything they have in their packs to try to slow it down, but Dani knows that what they have with them isn't enough. She held back some of the T3s for the Major, but there's no way to get him to swallow them now. She's debating giving them to Shawcross when they get back.

They reach the Gate. Allison is lying on the ground. Her body is covered with frost: it's too cold to snow here. Dani's fingers are too numb to feel for a pulse at her neck.

The MALP froze up; small wonder after three days in the Devil's Icebox. Dani can't get it to work. She dials the Gate, hoping. Still nothing.

They carry Allison back to the cave. Drag her really. Dani can't lift her by herself and Shawcross keeps stopping and staring out at the whiteness until she screams at him to move. But they get her back.

When Dani strips off her gloves, there are white patches on her fingers. She forces herself to take off her boots and pummel her feet until returning circulation is agony. But she's been in this situation before, when an energy blast to the Gate split SG-1 and dumped her and Jack at the second Gate in Antarctica. She got a crash course in Arctic survival then. She lived through that. They can all live through this if they just _try._

It takes her a long time to admit to herself that Allison is dead. But at last she gives in and strips the body, covering the Major with Allison's parka and putting the rest of Allison's clothes on over her own. Nothing there will fit Shawcross, and if she keeps him between her and the Major he'll be warm enough.

Her tears -- what there are of them -- freeze on her face.

All night long the Major raves and mutters. His fever is probably enough to melt ice all by itself. Toward morning he finally shuts up and she can get some sleep. She's too exhausted to think straight. When she wakes up later, he's dead. She's too exhausted to care.

She redistributes the clothing again. Shawcross can wear the Major's equipment, and now they've got double blankets and shelter halves. _And when Shawcross dies, I'll have everything, and I'll finally be warm._

She hates the fact that she's able to think that.

She's painfully thirsty. Her lips are bleeding, and her nose won't stop running. The last time she took her gloves off, her hands were a bloody mess as well. Chilblains, she thinks it is. The skin cracks open and bleeds from cold.

Shawcross doesn't look good. He lies in his blankets and stares, and it's hard to get his attention. Dani lies down beside him and puts her arms around him, and then describes the pornographic frescoes in the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii to him in great detail.

But he doesn't respond to the sound of her voice.

#

She doesn't know how much time has passed. Shawcross is asleep and he won't wake up. She knows he's asleep, not dead, because his breathing is loud and hoarse.

She wants him awake.

She picks up the Major's weapon. She means to walk to the doorway of the cave, but instead she crawls. She's as light-headed as if she were drunk. Maybe the cold is freezing the oxygen out of the air. It seems reasonable.

It takes her several tries to set the P90 on 'Full Auto' but she finally manages it. The noise will wake up Shawcross, she thinks.

She fires the weapon across the ice.

She can barely hold onto it. Aiming is impossible, not that she's shooting anything. It bucks and sprays like a fire hose, exhausting 100 rounds within seconds. She drops the empty weapon on the ice, her ears ringing.

She crawls back inside. Shawcross is still asleep. "Okay," she mutters. "Okay."

Her mouth is full of blood.

"Egypt," she says aloud. She's an Egyptologist. It's never this cold in Egypt. Not even in Hell. She curls up next to Shawcross, pulling the blankets back over both of them.

 _I'll sleep for a little while, then I'll think of something else._

#

"Christopher! Christopher! Wake up!"

"That's Ballard. Where's Christopher?"

"Ballard! Dr. Ballard!"

"Shit. Jesus."

Someone is pulling her into a sitting position, holding a cup to her lips. It's hot -- too hot -- and the liquid inside burns her cracked lips like lemon juice poured over a cut.

"Drink this," someone says.

"Good thing the Major fired off that clip. We never would've found them this fast."

"Lucky guy." Another voice.

She gulps the liquid, gagging on it.

"We found Major Hightower."

"Captain? The Major's dead."

Hot sugar courses through her body. She can finally focus her eyes. The cave is full of people in parkas. She can't see much around them. The cup is refilled, put to her lips again. She wants to hold it herself but she can't move her arms. Her body aches as if she's been beaten.

"Lieutenant Shawcross!" someone is saying behind her.

"Gangrene," she manages to croak. "Frostbite."

"Dr. Ballard? Stay with me. I'm Captain LeBeau, SG-14. You said frostbite. Do you have frostbite?"

SG-14. The medical unit. Medics with guns. "Tim," she croaks.

"Dr. Connor! Ballard says Shawcross has frostbite. You have to drink all of this, Dr. Ballard. We're going to move you soon." There's a babble of voices echoing off the ice. She feels feverish. But there's something important she has to remember. "How … long?" she finally asks.

LeBeau knows what she's asking.

"Four days. The Gate system has been down for four days."

They call for more equipment, and finally the cave is warm enough for her to start shivering. She feels lucid but exhausted. They keep feeding her hot orange-flavored glucose as Dr. Connor works on Shawcross. Captain LeBeau keeps talking to her, keeping her awake, trying to get the story. She explains, wondering if they think she killed Allison and Emory for their clothes. _I would not do that. I would never do that. I would not kill somebody for their clothes._ She hopes she's speaking English. Sometimes she mixes up her languages when she's this tired. Captain LeBeau's first language was French. She can hear it in his voice. Is she speaking French?

"We went to go back and the Gate didn't work. None of the addresses worked. I couldn't fix it. Sammy could have fixed it, but I couldn't. Allison couldn't. Major Hightower went out the next day to check. I wanted to go, but he wouldn't let me. He was sick when he came back. Then Allison went--" When had Allison gone? She can't remember. "After our food ran out." Yes, that's it. When was that? "She didn't come back. Tim and I went to find her. We brought her back but she was dead." Was she? Had she died later? "Major Hightower died that night." She's sure of that. He and Allison died together. Had he loved Allison? Had he ever told her? "Can't do that," she mutters. "Fraternization."

"Doctor Ballard? Dana?"

 _No. That isn't my name._ "Yes. I … yes." This has to be English. A mongrel dialect: Saxon sentence structure with Latin-derived grammar. English. "Tim was running a fever. We used up all our medical supplies on him." Did she give him the last of the T3s? Oh, god, she can't remember now.

"You're okay now, Dr. Ballard. You're going to be okay."

 _Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice._ She doesn't tell LeBeau that. He wouldn't understand. Her world has already ended in fire. That's why she's so cold now.

SG-3 arrives with travoises to transport the living and the dead. She'd rather walk, but she can't. The wind is full of ice. They cover her in blankets. They're heavy.

"This is the last of the offworld teams," someone is saying as she's brought through the Gate. Her body is starting to itch, like sunburn, but she's too muffled up to scratch.

She wonders where her glasses are.

"Major, I don't want anything like this to ever happen again." General Hammond sounds utterly furious.

"Is she all right?"

She recognizes Daniel's voice but she can't turn her head to see him.

"She's alive," LeBeau says.

It's too much trouble to stay awake.

#


	2. Chapter 2

She passes in and out of consciousness, convinced, though she can't remember why, that she mustn't say a word. She thinks she may be being held prisoner somewhere.

Eventually they lighten the sedation to the point where she remembers who and where she is.

She wonders what happened. The nurses don't know anything -- or won't admit to knowing anything -- but the members of the other teams are in and out. Drifting in and out of sedation, she hears gossip. Something about Ba'al and a computer virus.

Emory could find out. He'd tell her.

Emory is dead.

If she'd still been on SG-1, she'd know all the details. She would have been in the middle of the problem. She might even have helped to solve it. _Goa'uld_ computers and theirs are completely different. You can't pass a virus between them. And it's not as if anyone in the SGC is logging in to the Evil Galactic Overlord BBS anyway.

It occurs to her, as if for the first time, that Jack's privileged position at Stargate Command, and being on the Flagship Team -- the linguist who cracked the Gate codes, the astrophysicist who made the Gate work, and the Jaffa Former First Prime To Apophis -- gave her a peculiarly privileged position at the SGC. One she has lost without actually noticing.

Tim survives. She gets Sally to tell her that. But he's lost most of one foot and three toes off the other. Medical discharge. She doesn't see him before he's transferred to the Academy Hospital.

There's actually nothing wrong with her that rest and food won't cure. She's escaped frostbite, which is a minor miracle.

Because Emory and Allison kept her warm. And then they died.

She's all that's left of SG-7.

She bleeds, peels, and shreds, just as if she _were_ sunburned instead of flash-frozen. The nurses keep her skin covered with bandages and some kind of ointment. They won't let her have a mirror.

She has to be more heavily sedated to sleep at night. Sometimes she thinks there's someone beside the bed, holding her hand, but there's never anyone there when she wakes up in the morning. Illusion or not, it helps, though.

On the first day she can actually claim, without lying, to have an extended period of consciousness, Sam comes to see her. Major-Carter-Sam.

Sam.

It's a surprise.

"Hi," Sam says, sitting down.

"Hi." Her voice is still hoarse, but it's better now.

"How are you feeling?"

Her wrists are tied to the bedrails. She's allowed to feed herself, but they don't want her to scratch. And being nurses, won't believe that she won't. She itches _everywhere._

"They won't let me see … how I look."

"Not too bad," Sam says encouragingly. "You should be out of here soon."

"I want to see," she says stubbornly. It might be interesting.

"I'll smuggle you in a mirror next time. You're going to be fine."

"Sam… why didn't the Gate… work?"

She falls asleep in the middle of Sam's explanation.

#

Daniel is there when she wakes up again. He looks tired.

"This looks familiar," he says, indicating the restraints. He's (She's) spent a lot of time tied to beds in the Infirmary, with one thing and another.

She doesn't know what to say to him. In between waking and sleeping, she's had plenty of time to mull over the mission in her mind, and decide exactly how she killed SG-7. It was the ice cave. Obviously. There had to have been better shelter. She just didn't find it for them. They should have brought the MALP with them in the first place. They could have used it to search for a better cave.

This is her fault. Emory was in command, but she has more offworld experience than he did. She's been here from the beginning. She survived Antarctica. She could have told him the truth. He would have taken her suggestions. She didn't think of it. She killed them.

She can't say that to Daniel.

"Sorry," she says.

He unties her wrists. He continues holding one of her hands when he's done. The gesture feels familiar.

"Don't you think this is getting to be maybe too much of a habit?" he says, indicating the infirmary. His tone is determinedly light.

 _Jack always said I was accident-prone._

"Accident prone," she says aloud.

"Yeah, well, I don't think there should be two of us around here with that reputation," Daniel says.

SG-7 is the elephant in the room, and neither of them is willing to acknowledge it yet.

#

The next day she's taken off sedation completely. She's allowed to shower with the help of a female orderly. She's a little unsteady on her feet, but that will pass quickly enough, she's knows from experience. She gets a look at herself in the mirror. Except for a really bad case of chapped lips, she looks okay. Windburn. Sunburn. Nothing out of the ordinary.

They're going to let her out of here by the end of the week. She's surprised she hasn't missed the funerals, but Emory has out of town relatives who want to be there and Allison didn't have any at all. They're going to be buried at the same time. If they release her a day early she can go.

#

Colonel O'Neill comes to see her.

Now that she's cleared for general visitation, she's had quite a lot of visitors, actually. Sam has stopped back in, briefly. General Hammond. People she knows from the other Teams. But having Colonel O'Neill at her bedside is bizarre on so many levels.

He looks like her Jack.

He isn't her Jack.

She knows that, in her place, Jack would have gotten them all home alive. She doesn't want to let him know she knows that. It has to stay a secret, for some reason she's still too tired to follow all the way back to its source.

He asks how she's doing. The formalities are awkward. Stilted.

"It wasn't your fault," he says.

"Okay." It's more trouble than it's worth to argue with him.

"Danielle."

It's the first time he's called her by name. Ever. Jack never called her that. _Her_ Jack never called her that.

"I'm fine, Colonel, really. These things happen. We all did our best." _My best just wasn't good enough._

He's not going to see her cry. He's not going to _make_ her cry.

"You got Shawcross back alive."

 _I killed Emory and Allison._

"Yes I did." _I'm sure that will be a great comfort to him in the rest of his life, now that he doesn't have a real one._ "I'm fine. Really. Going to be."

Never will.

"Look--"

"I know you're busy, and I-- I really need to get some more sleep, okay?" She closes her eyes, turns her head away, and holds her breath until she hears him leave.

#

She isn't surprised when Dr. MacKenzie shows up the next day. Here to see if she's finally cracked.

He makes her feel like a lab rat. He's fascinated by the ways she's different from Daniel Jackson, just because she's a woman. There's never any doubt in MacKenzie's mind which of them is the inferior copy. She's sure of that.

"Hello, Dr. Jackson," he says, sitting down at her bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"Still not crazy, Dr. MacKenzie. How are you?"

"I just came over to talk to you. Losing two teams in just six months. That's got to be rough."

Two. SG-1 and SG-7, and it doesn't matter if SG-1 is still here. She knows that in every way that matters -- in the real world -- they're dead.

"We were lucky to have survived as long as we did. It reaches seventy below at night on Thule, apparently. Two of us came back."

"But surely you feel there's more you could have done?"

Oh, he's a sneaky bastard. But she's ready for him.

"I _wish_ there were more I could have done. That's different. The whole Gate system was down, Sam says. Nothing anybody could have fixed from Thule. We took shelter and waited to be rescued. What else could we have done?"

"Dr. Jackson, you aren't stupid. We both know there's such a thing as Survivor's Guilt."

She wishes he'd call her 'Dr. Ballard.' He seems to think that using her real name will create a sense of intimacy between them. She thinks of it as presumption.

"Of course I do." _I'm a bright girl. Everybody says so._ "If you're asking me if I'm sorry to be here, well, I'm not. I'm sorry they're dead. I'm very sorry. But this isn't the first time the SGC has lost a team and it isn't going to be the last. There will be a new SG-7."

"Do you expect to be on it?" MacKenzie asks.

This is bad. This is disturbing. Why would he ask her that?

"As far as I know, I'm _still_ on SG-7. If General Hammond wants to reassign me, I'm sure he'll let me know."

"He'll take my recommendation into account."

MacKenzie has never thought she should be on a Team. Back on a Team.

"Well dammit, recommend away! Tell General Hammond I need a vacation. Tell General Hammond I need a nice desk job. Tell him I weep inconsolably in corners every night. Tell him whatever you like."

"Do you?" MacKenzie asks. "Weep in corners?"

"No, usually I fall asleep at my desk. I have a lot of work to do. I can't do it lying here, but I understand they're going to let me out of bed soon. If that's okay with you?"

"It must be difficult not being allowed to take your proper place here. And not having your friends recognize you."

"They aren't my friends. They're Daniel Jackson's friends. They're _copies_ of my friends, with different memories. I'm used to that."

They had this exact conversation when she got here. Does he want to see if her feelings have changed?

"But they could become your friends. They came to visit you while you were here. And you spend a lot of time with Daniel Jackson."

Did Sam tell anybody about seeing her kiss him?

"Our work overlaps considerably. And wouldn't you be interested in an alternate version of you? It's amazing how much difference one little thing can make."

But this time she can't divert him.

"Do you ever think that if Daniel Jackson were simply … gone, you might be able to take his place?"

"Nooo… I'm the one who got him back in the first place, remember?" _And I don't want his place. I want mine._

"But surely you've thought about it?"

Anger lends her glibness. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I miss the part where you want me to confess to murderous thoughts about my alter-ego? If he died tomorrow -- and from all accounts, death is really just a temporary thing with him, too -- this would still be his world, and his place. I don't see what's in it for me. Except, if I killed him, one of the weirdest murder trials in history."

MacKenzie gets up. "I think that about wraps things up for today, Dr. Jackson. I'd like you to come see me again, when you're up and around." It isn't a request.

"Oh, I look forward to it, Dr. MacKenzie."

She's discharged just in time for the funeral. Medical leave, another two weeks. She has the foresight to have several boxes of reference books sent home with her this time. She goes home, changes into her black dress, formal coat, and pumps, drives to the cemetery.

One of the first outfits she bought for her civilian wardrobe was something to wear to funerals.

Late October in Colorado Springs is chilly. It's balmy compared to Thule. She thinks of the coming winter with an aversion bordering on panic.

SG-1 is at the funeral. The Teams all stand together. She has no one to stand with.

Emory Hightower was married. How weird is that? He never said a word, but the woman was at the funeral. Dani wonders what they told her about how he died.

"How are you?"

Daniel catches up to her afterward. She's glad. She's felt awkward with him since Thule, but she can't tell him the truth about how she feels about it and having something she can't tell Daniel the truth about doesn't feel right.

Caring one way or the other feels … indigestible.

"MacKenzie's decided I want to murder you and take your place," she says without preamble. That's truth. She feels better.

Daniel blinks, absorbing this bizarre conversational opening. "Do you?"

"No."

"The wake's at Jack's place. Are you coming?"

"They knew each other." She isn't sure what inflection her voice ought to have. The sentence comes out flat.

"Yeah, in the Gulf. You coming?"

She never knew that. Is it only true here?

If she doesn't go, MacKenzie will take notice, and mark down one more thing about her in his bad books. She hadn't gone to Robbie's wake, if there'd been one. She barely remembers getting back to her apartment after the funeral.

"Sure. I have to go home and change, first." She isn't wearing her dress to a wake.

"See you there."

#

Daniel assumes she knows the way to Jack's house. So does she. But she's still faintly relieved to arrive and see that it's actually where she remembered it being.

On the Other Side.

There are cars parked in the driveway and all up and down the block. Everyone's there.

 _I can do this._ She takes a deep breath and walks up to the front door. The sole survivor of SG-7. Hightower's other widow.

It's a loud noisy party. Well, a _wake,_ after all. Wake the dead.

Who was left to hold one for her, for them, back home? Janet? Janet Frasier is dead here. Cassie lives with Sam now. Poor Cassie; she's lost two mothers, two families. But Sam is her family, too, and she still has Sam.

Back home, Dani and Sammy and Janet were Cassie's family. She misses Cassie. She has made no attempt to see Cassie-here.

Everything in Jack's house is just the same -- here and there. She needs a beer. Several beers. Sally said she shouldn't drink yet. Maybe Sally isn't here.

#

She isn't.

#

It's late. She ought to leave. She's going to need to call a cab. She's in no condition to drive.

It's just down to the Teams, now, the people who know about Thule. About a dozen people. Even General Hammond has left. They're sitting around, sharing memories. The ones none of them can mention to outsiders. It hurts, but it's good. The jokes are raw, almost brutal, a way of laughing at death.

"To Emory Hightower, who went out for ice."

"May his drinks be cold and his women hot."

In a faultless imitation of Hightower's Back Bay cadence -- linguist, remember? it's just another dialect -- she recreates her first meeting with Emory Hightower. _'Dear lady.'_ They laugh. She has her own reputation now. And her own battle scars.

"You never told me that," Daniel says. She's sitting with her head on his shoulder, sprawled across Colonel O'Neill's couch. Daniel's arm is draped around her shoulder. When did that happen?

"You never told me he hated civilians, either." Now that she's not pretending to be someone else, the words come out just faintly slurred.

"You're drunk," Daniel says, with a positive sense of discovery.

"And you're sober. And in the morning, you'll still be sober, and I … I'll have a hell of a headache." That last beer -- oh, maybe the one before it, or the one before that -- had definitely been too many.

"You need someone to drive you home."

"Cab," she says positively.

"It'll take an hour to get here at this time of night."

And she's just about one beer from falling asleep right now. She takes a deep breath and sits up straighter, though Daniel's shoulder is extremely comfortable.

It's time for coffee. Time to leave.

#

Daniel drives her home. When they get there, he walks her upstairs. Possibly he thinks she can't find her apartment on her own. But she can. She can even get the key into the lock.

"Coffee?" she asks. _Oh, bad idea, bad idea, Indy!_

He follows her in.

She heads directly for the kitchen. She really _does_ want coffee. She has a theory that enough caffeine in your system cuts the hangover later. He wanders around the apartment. It doesn't take long to see the whole thing.

"Nice," he says, in a tone she has no trouble deciphering. "Very … simple."

Hey, at least she has curtains up over the windows. Well, blinds, anyway.

"I'm never here."

If he made a pass at her now, kissed her again, what would she do? No, _she'd_ have to make the pass, and he'd turn her down because she's been drinking. But the idea of a pass -- made and accepted -- hangs in the air between them.

He's beautiful.

After the coffee, after he leaves, she takes off all her clothes and stares at herself in the bathroom mirror, wondering if she's beautiful.

No.

She lost a lot of weight on Thule -- more than she lost on Abydos before finding out she was allergic to _yaphetta_ flour. Her face still manages to look babyish, though. In the right clothes, she could probably still pass herself off as a twelve-year-old boy. They _did_ pass her off as a boy a couple of times back home. It was useful.

Sometimes it was safer.

#

Of course, the next day she has to go get her car back.

It takes her an hour to find her car keys in the morning. (She keeps a spare set in the car. Maybe she'll just break a window to get in. The thought of trying to explain that, if she's caught, fills her with a peculiar horror.) She finds them eventually, in a place she never leaves them. _That's right. Daniel had them._ She gave them to him last night, as if handing over her car keys could create sobriety after the fact.

She isn't really hung over at all.

Sure.

#

The Jeep isn't where she left it. She's already paid off the cab and sent it away. She's standing in the middle of the street in front of Colonel O'Neill's house, and she doesn't see her car anywhere. This is ridiculous. She was sober when she parked it.

It's sitting in his driveway. She walks over to it. Her car. His driveway. Too familiar.

"I moved it."

Colonel O'Neill comes wandering around the side of the house. For some reason she hadn't thought he'd be here. "Moved your car," he repeats. He makes vague Jack-motions with his hands, which she interprets with the ease of long practice as 'parking regulations -- street sweepers -- trash pickup.'

Obviously he'd found the key. Daniel probably keeps one in the same place. Her windows appear to be intact.

"Thanks," she says.

"Coffee?"

She follows him inside, into the kitchen. The place looks remarkably un-shambles-like after the party.

Wake.

She isn't going to see Major Hightower ever again.

Ever.

She feels as if she's lost something.

"He was a good man," Colonel O'Neill says quietly, pouring water into the coffeemaker.

"He was." She means it. "He--" Suddenly her throat closes. She forces the words out anyway. "He didn't deserve to die! For a stupid-- The Gate wouldn't work! That's all it was! We were there and the _Gate didn't work!_ "

She's crying. She didn't mean to, didn't expect to. Danielle Jackson _does not cry._ The tears blind her and they hurt. Tears of anger. Rage. Grief.

The Colonel puts his arms around her and she gasps and chokes inelegantly against his flannel shirt -- _too familiar, not familiar enough_ \-- trying to stop crying. If she cries out all her stored tears now she'll never stop. When her breathing slows, he steps away and hands her a wad of paper towels. She scrubs hard at her face. Blows her nose.

"It was a stupid accident. They happen," he says.

She nods. She can accept that. She's always known it was true. There are stupid accidents and people die. Her parents.

 _We did our best. We all did our best and it wasn't good enough._ She feels something loosen inside, as if she's been forgiven. They take their coffee out onto the deck. It's a beautiful fall day, but winter's coming.

"He liked you."

It startles a laugh out of her. In that case, he'd nearly killed her with kindness, back in the beginning. Her back still aches in memory at Major Hightower's idea of a walking pace.

The Colonel can tell exactly what she's thinking.

Jack always could.

"Well, you know. Civilians. Scientists," Colonel O'Neill adds, as if this is a new idea. "Me … Carter." He looks at her. "Me and Carter, right?"

It takes her a moment to decode this, but she does know him. She does, she realizes.

"Oh yes. She said so … my … Sam. You were absolutely delighted at the thought of being saddled with another girl geek." Not.

"Science…" Colonel O'Neill waves a hand, dismissing an entire field of human endeavor as something that makes his brain hurt. "Me? You?"

This takes a little longer, but she figures it out. It's the first time he's ever asked about her past. Their shared past. On The Other Side.

"You -- he -- refused to take me to Abydos. I said I could find the address to dial you home from the other side, but …he… still refused. Catherine fought for me, but he decided on Dr. Meyers instead. He was sure I could teach Gary everything he needed to know." She makes a rude sound. "The man thought Budge was a reliable authority. But I tried. Unfortunately Gary fell off the ramp on the way through the Gate and broke his ankle, and I was the only choice left. He told me that if I set one foot out of line he'd kill me himself and not wait for anything we found on Abydos to do it."

"It got better," Colonel O'Neill says, guessing.

Yeah, that's pretty obvious.

"Hey, I let you come back." She sets the empty cup down on the railing. "I've got to go. Thanks for the coffee, Colonel."

"Name's Jack."

#

Two weeks later she comes back to work. An airman with a handtruck helps her bring her books down to her office. Whatever is in Dr. MacKenzie's final evaluation, it hasn't kept her from being certified for active duty -- and offworld duty -- again.

General Hammond calls her into his office.

"Dr. Ballard. I'm glad to see you looking so well."

"Thank you, General. I'm looking forward to getting back to work."

"It will be some time before a new SG-7 can be assembled. In the meantime, SG-9 needs a hand. Dr. Crawford has requested a three-week leave of absence. I need someone to fill in for him."

"That sounds great, General."

"Then why don't you go down and check in with Colonel Nguyen? I'll let him know to expect you."

After SG-9 is finished with her, she goes to SG-2, then SG-14. She floats among the various active teams, going where she's needed. General Hammond is considering making her a permanent float. Not every team needs someone like her on every mission. The idea is appealing.

December becomes January.

Ten months, now.

#

"Mine!" she crows, swooping the cube off Daniel's desk.

SG-1 just brought it back. It's about eight inches square, as heavy as _naquaadah_ , and is covered with symbols that can only be seen under an electron microscope. It opens out into a thin sheet about ten feet square when you hit it with the right electrical charge, and every inch of it is covered with writing. It's something they've never seen before. They're pretty sure it's some kind of book. It's going to take weeks to translate.

"I saw it first!" Daniel yelps, with the subtle dynamics of the playground. He grabs for it, but his desk is in the way. "We brought it back!"

"You're going out again tomorrow. You won't have time to look at it. _Mine!_ General Hammond said so!"

"You've got SG-6!" Daniel is moving around the desk, apparently intending to wrestle her for it. She retreats to the wall of his office, clutching it to her chest.

"Finished yesterday. Mine, mine, mine. I saw your preliminary reports. You can help, if you're good."

"Jack--!" Daniel turns in appeal to a higher authority.

"SG-1 is a field unit, Daniel." Jack is slouched in a corner of Daniel's office, paying very little apparent attention to the byplay. "That means we're … in the field. Tomorrow."

"At least let me--"

"Bright and early," Jack says remorselessly. " _Bright_ and early."

"I'm taking it down to Special Materials now to open it up. We're going to get a nice set of photos of the symbols. You want to come along?"

"Yes," Daniel says, reluctantly accepting defeat. Or at least a temporary setback.

She lets him carry it. It really is heavy.

"You are not a nice person," he tells her sincerely.

"Sure I am," she says. "Oh come on, Daniel, you'd rather be out there than in here."

"So would you."

"I'm a float."

"You're a flake."

"You know, you shouldn't criticize yourself so harshly." She grins at him. He's the first person in the world she hasn't had to spell everything out for, or play Connect The Dots with over and over until some dim spark of comprehension dawns.

"I want a complete set of the photos you get of this," he says darkly.

"Of course." That was never in doubt. "And all my notes. This will go faster with two."

The work could be enough. Might be enough, except for the one thing that's never far from her mind. Even now. When she's … happy.

She has to warn the SGC about the Furlings. _Her_ SGC.

Her Jack would expect that.

#

February. Thank god she has a Jeep. Every year she manages to forget how hard the winters are here. She has to leave for work an hour earlier in the morning just to be sure of getting in on time.

"The times don't match because the Furlings didn't want me here while you were Ascended."

"Good morning," Daniel says in response. She sets her tray down next to his on the Commissary table.

"There's a connection between the Furlings and the Ancients," she says. "And while you were Ascended, you would have known what it was. That would have interfered in their … pattern." _In their stupid game._

"But I couldn't have interfered." Still a sore point with him, she knows from the files. The Ascended are like the Annunaki. All they do is watch. The one time Daniel tried to interfere, he failed. Anubis destroyed Abydos anyway. She doesn't even have Abydos to go home to, here.

"You couldn't have. But you would have known how to."

"I don't remember anything." Another sore point; the annoyance is clear in his voice. Not at her. At knowledge lost.

"It's another place to look," she says stubbornly. "At the Ancients." If Daniel can independently confirm the solution to the Furling's riddle… She'll feel better about things. She doubts herself. Doubts her theory. It could be wrong.

"Good morning, children," Jack says, setting his tray down across the table. Coffee and Froot Loops. How can a grown man start his day with a breakfast like that?

She's always wondered.

Daniel waves, intent on two conversations at once. "The Ancients had time travel. We know that."

It's only a theory, still unproven. Still, she thinks so too.

"Daniel, it's too early in the morning to think," Jack says firmly.

"About what?" Sam asks, sitting down next to Jack.

"Time … travel," Jack says, making swirling motions.

"It would violate the laws of causality," Sam says.

"It _doesn't_ violate the laws of causality," Dani protests. "We've time-traveled." SG-1 has time-traveled, to be precise. "There has to be a way to make it a practical replicable phenomenon. Particle physics doesn't work unless the particles travel backward in time as well as forward."

Daniel and Sam both look surprised. _What? I've been listening to Sammy for five years,_ Dani thinks.

"We _think_ ," Sam says, glossing her sentence. "But time-travel on a subatomic level and moving something larger through time are two different things entirely. It's dangerous. As we know, the possibility of introducing temporal anomaly--"

"Carter, it is _way_ too early for this."

Sam grins at her apologetically.

Dani smiles back.

#

February 12th. In four more weeks, she'll have been here for a year. She doesn't know why the anniversary should particularly bother her. What does time matter, when the solution to her problem requires time travel?

But she has the terrible feeling that she's running out of time.

#

The Pentagon overrules General Hammond -- not that he ever got to the point of telling them that he was willing to trade the Furling technology for the return of SG-1. He's ordered to ship the devices the Furlings have brought to Area 51 for study.

"This is not your decision?" Raven asks Colonel Hopewell.

Colonel Hopewell thinks carefully before he answers. He's not even sure how the Furlings know that the objects have been removed from the SGC. But they obviously do.

"The decision to accept your gifts was made by my superiors," he says carefully.

"General Hammond has made the decision to accept our gifts?"

He hesitates, but the first rule of interstellar diplomacy is never to tell flat lies to the godlike powerful aliens.

"General Hammond has superiors as well."

"General Hammond did not make this decision?" Raven asks. She's obviously not going to let this matter drop.

"General Hammond consulted with his superiors."

"But was this General Hammond's decision? We must know. General Hammond owns Doctor Danielle Jackson. She has paid. The gifts are his."

'Owns.' That would get a laugh out of the Old Man if the situation weren't so damned serious.

"It is our way to take counsel among ourselves, and let the wisest rule."

Coyote laughs, a sound that reminds Colonel Hopewell of dogs howling.

"Does the wisest rule here?" Raven asks, with honey-sweet persistence. "I have heard it said that General Hammond would return our gifts and receive Danielle Jackson again."

Where the devil did she -- could she -- have heard that? Never mind the fact that it's true.

"General Hammond would very much like to have Danielle Jackson back. He would like to have all of SG-1 back. May we have them?" Colonel Hopewell asks. It never hurts to ask, after all.

"General Hammond has accepted our gifts?" Raven repeats, with exactly the same inflection as before.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

"General Hammond has _not_ accepted your gifts. General Hammond has bowed to the wisdom of his superiors. _They_ accept your gifts."

Raven and Coyote consult, for what seems like a very long time.

"But these are not their gifts. These are General Hammond's gifts. General Hammond has refused our gifts. In that case, we will make you another. But you will not see it."

Coyote laughs, as if Raven has said something immeasurably funny.

#

A year and a day -- twelve lunar months -- marks the bounds of fairy spells.

She realizes, as the day draws to a close, that she's held out an unexamined hope that on this day the Furling's spell would somehow end. It isn't a spell, of course, but the fairytale aspects of this situation are impossible to ignore. Especially since she's spent the last year researching them. The fear, twined to the hope, is that after a year and a day here nothing anyone can do will ever get her back home again. Like Persephone in Tartarus, doomed to stay forever because she's eaten Goblin Fruit.

To mix a number of motifs.

#

Daniel invites her out to dinner.

She goes because she's miserable, because she realizes she has no social life at all. Because the Mountain suddenly seems like a tomb, and she, buried alive. It's just the two of them, which surprises her. But who else was she expecting? Sam? Jack? Teal'c? Their relationships are cordial to the point of friendship but they stop at the elevator doors. She's been careful to keep it that way. Deep inside, she's afraid that if they get too close, this SG-1 will die too. She knows the Furlings are watching. They have to be. How else will they know when this SGC has solved their riddle?

The evening is … good. She feels alive again, whole. Daniel is easy to talk to. There are no ghosts between them. They go back to her place for coffee after the restaurant. They both know where the evening is going. It is the culmination of a long negotiation that has been conducted in utter silence between two of the most accomplished linguists on Earth.

He follows her into the kitchen. This time she isn't drunk, and nobody's dead. And nobody is going to come through the door to interrupt them. He taps her on the shoulder as she stares, hypnotized, down into the brewing coffee. She turns around. They kiss.

Eventually she switches off the heating element on the coffee, and he goes down to his car to get his go-bag. He comes back dusted with snow. It's March, and the weather's uncertain still.

She likes the idea of more kissing, but she sees no reason to do it here. She takes his bag and tosses it to the couch, slips his coat from his shoulders and tosses it there too. Takes his hands. Pulls gently.

He smiles, and follows her into the bedroom.

It's a stark space -- white blinds, white walls, white dresser, double bed of the sort where the headboard contains its own night tables. Two lamps, two clocks -- one battery, in case the power fails. The carpet is beige. There are no pictures anywhere. The only color in the room is the expanse of forest green down comforter on the bed. Even the sheets are white. It is not, it suddenly occurs to her, very seductive.

He goes over and turns on one of the bedside lights. Comes back and turns off the overhead light. Better.

Kisses her again.

"You might want to consider taking off your clothes," he says a minute or so later, sounding a little breathless.

"Your professional assessment?" She's worked his shirt and undershirt loose from the waistband of his slacks, and has her hands on the bare skin of his back.

"My professional assessment."

She releases him with faint reluctance and steps back, intending to undress herself. But instead, they undress each other. He slides her sweater up over her head, holding it carefully so it won't catch her glasses. She unbuttons his shirt as he unhooks her brassiere. Not much to either bind or conceal, really -- she's had complaints -- but he touches her and she presses herself against him.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," he complains, kissing the side of her neck. He can reach it, now that the sweater's gone.

"Speak for yourself."

"The bed's over there," he points out.

It is, and she wants him in it. She lets go of him again, pulls the bra off and drops it on the floor on top of her sweater. Reaches for the waistband of his pants.

He stops her.

"Dani… I'd better go get…" He gestures toward the living room, and his go-bag. For a moment she doesn't understand. Then she does.

Condoms?

Why?

"We're both clean," she says, puzzled. Their blood is tested several times a week. They're the healthiest people on Earth. Or anywhere else for that matter.

"What are you using?" he asks. To keep from getting pregnant, he means. "I know we should have--"

Talked about this earlier. Before they were standing half-naked in her bedroom. But she hadn't wanted to _talk_ about it at all. And still doesn't.

"I don't have to use anything," she says. "I… I'm sterile. Happened on a mission."

She knows about what happened between him and Hathor. She's read about it, back when she had full access to SG-1's mission files.

Sally knows by now what Hathor did to her. The doctor has to know.

No one else.

He sighs. Kisses her gently. Then again. Not as gently. When she reaches for the waistband of his pants this time, he doesn't stop her.

#

At last they're both naked in her bed. She turns out the bedside light. The light from the street comes through the blinds, makes vertical bars across the wall, reflects from the mirror. By the faintly yellow cast of it, she knows that it's snowing in earnest now.

She wants him, and he wants her.

But it's over far too quickly.

She feels him shudder and then gasp in frustration. He lies against her for a moment, his forehead pressed against her shoulder, then rolls away, silent. She can think of nothing to say. It's happened to her before, of course, but always followed by an immediate storm of blame and self-justification on the part of her partners. Daniel just lies there, and she knows that if he's blaming anyone, it's himself. She reaches out and takes his hand. His fingers close around hers.

"Sorry," he says. The word sounds as if it's forced through gritted teeth.

"Shush," she says. She isn't going to tell him that it happens. That's hardly what he needs to hear.

"Do you want me to--?"

She doesn't want to hear any of the possible endings to that sentence.

"Sleep now," she says. She wants to lie beside him and imagine the way it could have gone.

He falls asleep before she does.

#

He wakes her in the night, calling out in his sleep for Sha're. For a moment, roused to consciousness by the familiar language, she thinks she is back in her last, best home. Then she comes all the way awake.

 _‹"Dan'yel, Sha're-my-sister is gone,"›_ she answers gently, in Abydan. _‹"I am here."›_

"Sha're?" he says again, still only half awake.

 _‹"I am her sister, Dan'yel. Sha're has gone to walk among the gods."›_

She rolls over and puts her arms around him. He clings to her as if he's drowning and she can save him. She strokes his back, kisses his shoulder. He tastes of salt.

Salt is as precious as water on Abydos.

 _‹"Dana're."›_

Of course he would know what they called -- would call -- her on Abydos.

He raises his face to hers, finds her mouth.

His lips are wet with tears.

She runs her fingers gently down his spine, over and over, thinking -- as much as she is thinking at all -- of Sha're. It was lonely to sleep alone again after she left Abydos. She had slept on the Women's Side, nestled between Sha're and Khensa. She was safe. Loved.

She kisses Dan'yel, licking the salt from his mouth.

His sighs kindle her, making her body feel heavy and soft. His hands move down her back, toward her waist.

His hips shift against her, only half-consciously. He is ready for her again.

She urges him onto his back, pressing him down into the sheets. Mounts him, straddling him, sliding him inside her. Rocks her hips against him, telling him of his beauty in her sister's tongue. His eyes like the desert sky. His skin, as pure, as pale as the desert sand. Royal, a true prince, as beautiful and fierce as the light of the suns in the sky, as unstoppable as the sand that darkens the wind.

His hands grip her hips, pulling her to a faster pace. Answers her in turn, courting her in a language she thought she would never hear again. He tells her that her skin is perfumed with incense, that there is honey beneath her tongue.

The stars are their canopy. She can see them, as her breath catches and her heart beats faster in her chest. The stars of home.

It's better when they can both dream of Abydos.

#

The alarm clock -- both of them -- awakens her with a nasty clamor at 5:30. She's fallen asleep still half-beneath Daniel, their bodies stickily tangled together.

She squirms free and batters both of the clocks into submission. Drags herself out of bed with iron discipline -- she'd much rather get back into bed for more sleep, or more sex, or best of all, _both_. But today is a work day.

At least she isn't scheduled to go offworld.

She grabs her robe off the bathroom door and heads into the kitchen. Throws out last night's coffee and starts fresh. Checks out the window. It's snowing. Turns on the television to The Weather Channel, which confirms that it is indeed snowing, eight to ten expected.

Picks up Daniel's bag and heads back into the bedroom.

Daniel is sitting up.

"You can have the first shower if you're quick," she tells him, setting his bag on the bed.

"What _time_ is it?" he asks incredulously.

"5:30. And it's snowing. Traffic will be the usual. I leave early."

He just groans.

"Coffee soon," she promises.

He starts moving. She retreats.

#

She watches the coffee brew, thinking about last night.

Started badly. Ended…

She hopes they will do it again.

She aches pleasantly. She hasn't done this for a while. And not for a _long_ while with somebody she actually wanted to do it with. Sarcophagi-induced delirum and alien viruses don't actually count, do they?

So -- leaving out _those_ ... occasions, and leaving out -- for the sake of the argument -- the occasional one-night verging-on-spite bar pick-ups of men whose names she barely remembered even at the time, the last person she actually wanted in her bed was ... Simon, back at the Oriental Institute in Chicago in her post-doc days.

That's a long time.

She thinks of Daniel. She can be Sha're's sister for him. She _is_ Sha're's sister, that much is true. On Abydos, following the traditions of ancient Egypt, they practice (practiced) a form of dynastic incest. When a man's wife died, he married her oldest unmarried sister. It was not uncommon for a man to marry all of the sisters in a family, taking the younger ones as concubines if his wife still lived.

She and Dan'yel -- _y'el_ and _y'ai_ are the Abydan suffixes meaning 'of the gods' -- are all that is left of Abydos.

But only -- she is sure of this already -- in the dark.

She supposes what they have done is more perverse in their birth-culture -- if she is honest -- than a man taking his dead wife's sister to bed. Or even than taking his own sister to bed. She isn't Daniel's sister, in any sense. She's _him._

She wonders if that's the attraction. For both of them. She likes Daniel. She has for a long time. He isn't an echo of anyone she's lost. He isn't someone she has to pretend to be someone else with. But you can like someone without wanting to take them to bed. Not the case here. And her reasons don't apply in reverse. This is his world. He has no reason to pretend here. Except that _she_ pretended every day on The Other Side. Pretended to be like everyone else, pretended not to care when she failed. Fitting in has always been a survival skill. Adaptive coloration. It's tiring.

She never had to pretend with Jack, or Sammy, or Teal'c.

She's halfway through her first cup of coffee when Daniel comes into the kitchen, heavy-eyed, damp, and dressed. He hasn't shaved yet. He kisses her in passing as she hurries off to the shower.

#

Daniel comes into the bathroom while she's showering.

"The SGC called," he says. "It's urgent."

"Did you pick up?" she asks, stepping out.

"I didn't really think you'd want me to."

"Not really. What about you?"

"Haven't called me yet."

She wraps herself in her robe, checks the time. If they're phoning at six in the morning, it's urgent.

#

"Ballard."

"This is General Hammond."

"Sir?"

"How fast can you be here, Dr. Ballard? We have a situation."

"Depending on traffic, sir, by seven or so, I think. I'll try to be there sooner."

"Please be here as fast as you can."

Daniel is on his cellphone as she walks back into the bedroom. "Medieval or Classical?" he's asking. "I mean, there are several dialects, depending on the time period. And the place. So it depends. And then there's modern Latin."

She yanks open drawers.

"It depends, Jack. They'd probably be speaking Dog Latin. It depends on where they were posted. It's not really--"

 _"Si non Latina, eruditus es dimidiata,"_ she tells him. _If you don't speak Latin, you're only half educated._

 _"Qui doctus dimidio omnino stultus,"_ Daniel replies, putting the phone against his chest. _He who is half educated is wholly a fool._ "What? Oh, the television," he says into the phone. "Yes, I'm on my way in. Probably about an hour."

She fills two travel mugs, and they're out the door ten minutes later. It's a shame they can't take just one Jeep, but it looks like something's up, and one or the other of them would end up being stranded at The Mountain -- Jeepless -- at the other end.

#

By dint of driving like a maniac -- and reckless use of four wheel drive -- she beats Daniel to the Mountain by fifteen minutes, on the phone to him most of the way. She has orders to report directly to the Briefing Room, and goes there as soon as she's changed.

General Hammond and Jack are waiting for her.

"Dr. Ballard," General Hammond says. "Sorry to call you in so early, but we have an emergency. Four days ago I sent SG-4 to PNX-194 on a routine survey mission. They made their first several check-ins on schedule, reporting signs of _naquaadah_ in the soil, and sent back photographs by MALP-relay of what seems to be a city."

The photographs are displayed upon the briefing room screen. Several of them, one after the other, all taken from a distance.

"It looks like Roman architecture, sir." It looks like more than that. It looks like _Rome._ Rome of approximately 100CE. The Forum, the Coliseum, both are plainly visible. "Maybe early Imperial period," she adds, hedging her bets. "Hard to tell without a closer look." It's not quite her area of expertise, either, but she knows there are specialists up in AA &T who cover this period obsessively.

"So we thought. I ordered SG-4 to go in for a closer look, try to make contact with any locals. They missed their last two scheduled check-ins. Approximately two hours ago I opened a wormhole to PNX-194 and heard … this." There's a cassette recorder on the table. He presses a button.

It's obviously being relayed over somebody's radio. There's shouting and a babble of voices. Hard to make out. Rhythmic pounding. Groans and screams. A few phrases are clear, but they're maddeningly hard to understand. She pulls the recorder over to her, plays the clearer sections of the tape over and over.

Suddenly she understands what they're saying.

"It's Latin, sir. They've got a heavy local accent, I think there's some drift. But I can understand them. I can even speak it if I hear enough of it. You're hearing an execution. That word _'K'sar'_ \-- that's 'Caesar.' _Y no'meni K'sar_ \-- 'In the name of Caesar.' These people think they're in Imperial Rome."

No wonder Jack had been asking Daniel about Latin.

"Dr. MacLaren agrees with your evaluation, but it took her an hour to identify the language. If we send you through, do you think you can communicate with these people, Doctor Ballard?" General Hammond asks.

"Yes, of course, General Hammond. There shouldn't be any problem."

Most of the cultures they contact through the Gate speak contemporary American English. There are a number of theories for why that is. Her personal favorite is that the _Goa'uld_ have learned English from the radio and television waves that Earth has been spraying into space with such innocent abandon for more than a century now, and have scavenged it -- as they have scavenged so many other technologies -- because English is such a useful _lingua franca._ But nobody is really sure. And there are still some worlds where the population still speaks either one of the other languages of Earth, or some other language entirely. She can compensate for the vowel shift if she hears a large enough sample.

"What's going on?" Daniel asks, coming in.

"They speak Latin on PNX-194," she says. "A new dialect."

"Well yours is better than mine," he says, sitting down.

"Doctor Ballard is going with SG-5 to PNX-194 to find out what happened to SG-4," General Hammond says grimly. "SG-5 has already been briefed. Be at the Gate in fifteen minutes. Dismissed."

#

SG-5 -- Major Harper and five Marines -- steps through the Gate ahead of her. The MALP is sitting right there. Their MALP. SG-4's MALP vanished about the time they started missing check-ins. They were on a twelve-hour schedule, so nobody's heard from them in twenty-four hours. The transmission General Hammond played for her is three hours old now.

It's late afternoon on PNX-194. It's summer. The air smells of cedar and roses.

And rotting meat.

"Something must have died," one of the Marines says, sounding disgusted.

She kneels down, runs her hands over the surface of the road. It's a Roman road. Granite blocks over heavy gravel over pea gravel over sand. A trench twelve feet deep, a road wide enough for the Legions -- or for two chariots to pass each other going in opposite directions. She gets to her feet, looking around. Finds what she expected to see.

"I don't know how the hell they missed it," she mutters crossly. But SG-4 doesn't have an A/A specialist attached to it. SG-4 is York and Chambers and Levine and Major Brenner. She went through SGO&T with York and Chambers. SG-4 is equipped to find minerals and alien gadgets, not figure out Earth-derived cultures. They missed the herms flanking the Gate. They're overgrown with brush, but they should have known to look for them. She films them quickly. There's carving on them -- _VII_ \-- but she doesn't know what it means. Could be distance. Could be something else.

"Are you finished, Dr. Ballard?"

"Just confirming that we're in Ancient Rome, Major Harper." She brushes off her hands, walks over to him. The wind shifts, blowing toward them strongly. Something -- large -- is definitely dead nearby. "Major, this is important. I want to find SG-4 and figure out what's going on and I know you do too. But it's really important that, no matter what happens, any natives we meet, you _have_ to let me do all the talking, okay?"

"And why is that, Dr. Ballard?"

Marines are great people to have at your back. Sometimes. This may not be one of them. She tries to figure out how to phrase this.

"We think these people think they're Romans, because they seem to speak Latin. If they're anything like our Romans back home, they hate anybody who isn't a Roman, and they really hate anybody who can't speak Latin. Now I'm here because I speak Latin. They will probably talk to me. If you talk to them, we could get into trouble."

"You think that's what happened to SG-4?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, Dr. Ballard, let's go."

He hasn't agreed.

Great.

#

The tape should have warned her. The smell should have warned her. Nothing could have warned her.

They come over the crest of the rise. Ahead, the road slopes down, and then runs straight as an arrow to the walls of … Rome. Birds wheel and perch in the trees that line the road.

The road is lined with cypresses. The road is lined with crucifixes. Tall wooden posts -- twelve feet high -- with a crossbar at the top. Men are hanging from them. Nailed to them. As far as the eye can see. All the way down to the gates of Rome.

It's the source of the smell.

"It's traditional," she says in a small shaking voice. "Crucifixion was a punishment reserved by Roman law for slaves and criminals. Their bodies would be displayed in a public place as an incentive to maintain civil order."

"We have to walk through this?" Major Harper asks, his voice toneless.

"To get to the city," she answers.

"Come on then. I've seen worse."

She really doesn't want to imagine where.

They walk down the center of the road. She keeps her eyes fixed straight ahead, trying not to breathe. She can't help seeing.

The bodies are in all naked, in all states of decay. Some of them, blackened and swollen with heat and putrefaction, have burst. Others have fallen away from their wooden moorings in pieces, to lie in the ditches beneath. Others are still fresh.

The smell is indescribable. Like an open grave.

"Sir. _Sir!_ " It's DiGrazzia.

Major Harper stops. "Doctor," he says quietly.

She follows his gaze.

It was the Roman custom, in many instances, to nail a list of the crimes of the victim to the top of the crosspieces. At the top of four of the crucifixes on the left side of the road, she sees a familiar round patch. Too far away to make out, except for the fact she's worn one like it on her right shoulder for the last five years.

The bodies are fresh. They've found SG-4. One of the victims lifts his head at the sound of voices.

York.

"Get him down," Major Harper says harshly. "Then check the others."

"Lift the post straight up," she says. "It should be set in a socket."

She drops her pack and vest on the road. She's carrying most of the medical supplies. The Marines lift the post out of its socket. York gasps and whimpers as the post begins to move.

They lay the post down across the road. She falls to her knees beside it and injects York with morphine -- the ampoules are measured out in single doses, and three in a three-hour period is supposed to be the maximum -- and gives him water. He is weeping like a child, choking and shuddering with pain ever after she gives him as much morphine as she dares. Sanchez reports that the other three -- Chambers and Levine and Brenner -- are already dead.

Their legs haven't been broken. She tells them to check for that. York's haven't been broken either. That means they were meant to take a long time dying.

She has read about the mechanics of crucifixion, but she's not sure how long it would take someone to die on a cross. Estimates vary from a day to a week, depending on the physical condition of the victim and the climate. York has been up there long enough to sustain severe trauma. How long? Since they lost contact with the SGC? The Romans crucify at dawn when they have the choice; it's hot work for the soldiers. It's late afternoon now, but SG Teams are all in top physical condition. It would take them more than a few hours to die. If your legs have been broken you asphyxiate; otherwise it takes more than a day to die. Since yesterday morning, then?

In which case, who sent the radio transmission three hours ago? And why?

 _We really ought to get out of here._ She cuts the ropes around York's wrists and ankles, but his wrists and feet have been nailed to the wood with thick iron spikes that are sunk deep, and she can't work them free.

"Run," York groans, seeing her. "Dana… run."

"It's okay," she tells him. "You're going to be okay now."

"We have to take this with us," she tells Major Harper, meaning the post, the crosspiece, the whole apparatus of damnation. She takes off her jacket, drapes it over York. She gives him one more ampoule of morphine. Six is a lethal dose. She's carrying ten. Six left now.

"We'll kill him," Major Harper says flatly. He's right. Both of York's shoulders are dislocated. She can see the bruising where he's bled beneath the skin. If they try to carry him back suspended on the cross, he'll probably die.

Major Harper kneels down beside her, working at the spikes. He's got a heavy machete in his pack. The spikes are soft iron. He hacks at them, severing the ones holding York's arms between York's hands and the wood. York sobs aloud as his body is jarred by the blows, and at last, mercifully, faints. She pulls the broken spikes free of the swollen bruised flesh, then lifts his arms off the stubs, feeling bone scrape against metal.

She's given him all the morphine she dares.

She bandages his wrists, kneeling on the wood to take his head in her lap. She tapes the empty ampoules to his skin so the medical staff will know how much morphine she's given him. Janet and Sammy taught her this, a long time ago.

His feet have been broken by the iron spike fixing them to the post. She knows from her reading that the spike is eight to thirteen inches long; its head is embedded now in blackened swollen flesh that has risen up around it. York's feet are covered with blood. Major Harper works the machete beneath them, pushing and prying. York is beyond feeling anything.

At last the third spike surrenders. But she tapes his ankles together, holding the remains in place, rather than trying to remove it. It's jammed among too many pieces of broken bone to be pulled free. The Marines ease him off the cross. She gets to her feet. Two of the Marines have laid out a shelter half on the road. They'll carry York back in that. Three of them lift him into it, carefully. He's still out cold, breathing shallowly.

Suddenly she sees a flicker of light on metal through the trees, coming from the direction of the Stargate.

She holds up a hand. _Wait._

It's a full century: sixty men. Roman soldiers. They're dressed to march, not to parade, but their armor still gleams. They look as if they've walked straight out of the first century in every detail of their uniforms. Bronze and leather, red cloaks and stiff horsehair plumes. Nutrition is good here; their height averages around 5'8".

For almost a thousand years the Roman Legions were the most terrifying and efficient military force the world knew. Looking at them advance, 'Dana' is sure that whatever else SG-5 may find here, they'll also find a carefully-nurtured transplant of Rome. Major Harper's men, with modern weapons, can probably take the century and get back to the Stargate, but only by killing every one of the soldiers. Half of the soldiers are carrying javelins, a distance weapon. SG-5 will probably take casualties during the fight as well. And the Romans have already seen they've taken down one of the crucifixes.

She's pretty sure that's a crime here. Interfering with Roman justice.

#

"Dr. Ballard?" Major Harper says quietly.

"We're already in deep trouble, Major. We've meddled in one of their executions. Let me handle it. And for god's sake don't open your mouths. I think not knowing Latin is what got the others killed."

She walks forward. The century sees the party in the road. Stops. She sees several of the soldiers set down cages on poles. The cages contain a kind of small leopard. It has coffee-colored fur with black spots, but its underbelly is snow-white. The animals in the cages hiss and thrash, maddened by the smells around them.

The Centurion comes forward. She waits for him to speak. She needs to hear the language to get the vowel shift.

 _‹"Get out of my way, boy."›_ He raises his hand, but does not hit her.

She does not flinch. _‹"I am no boy, Commander,"›_ she says slowly and deliberately, pitching her voice higher than usual.

Now he's uncertain of her status, and in Roman society, that is (was) nearly impossible. He does not know how to treat her. In fact, suddenly he cannot speak to her at all without knowing which forms to use. And if she is plebian enough, he can kill her where she stands.

But if she is highborn, where are her servants?

There's only one thing she can do and she does it. He hasn't given her enough -- quite -- to pick up the local accent, but she can't wait for it. Classical Latin had better be good enough.

 _‹"I wonder that you dare stand before me at all, let alone raise your hand to me? How_ dare _you execute my servants, whose thought was only for my comfort! Do you know who I am? When my father hears of this it is you and your men who will decorate these crosses! I am hot, I am tired, my baggage is missing -- undoubtedly stolen by more of your men in the guise of bandits, so that I am forced to wear these_ rags, _and I am forced to_ walk _all the way here! I have never been so humiliated in my life! What is your name? "›_

She stamps her foot, and glares at the Centurion. _‹"Your name!"›_ she demands again.

 _‹"Rufus Armoricus, noble lady. May I ask who I have the honor of addressing?"›_

Armoricus. Not Roman, then. Probably descended from one of the Legions stationed in the West. A couple of them went missing on their way back to Rome…

 _‹"Julia Danae Amerigae of Rome. I want wine, and I want a litter and I want them at once. At once, do you hear!"›_

Rufus -- the name means 'red-head' and his hair does have a tinge of red to it -- turns positively pale at the _gens_ she's named. She picked it for that exact reason. If you're going to bluff, bluff big. Jack always said that. She's just claimed descent from the Divine Julius. And Rufus recognized the name.

 _‹"Lady Julia, I-- A thousand apologies-- We did not know-- The Goddess did not tell us there would be guests from True Rome for the Games-"›_

She doesn't know what she's gotten herself into, but it's better than a firefight with a Roman century. _‹"I do not doubt it is because you killed my messenger, as well as half my guards,"›_ she replies icily. _‹"I am sending this one back to my villa. He is of no use to me here."›_ She catches Major Harper's eye, gestures quickly.

Her accent is improving.

Rufus wants to argue, but she and Major Harper don't give him time. Major Harper details two Marines -- DiGrazzia and Rice -- and they're off up the road with York at a jog run, with orders to go home and stay home. She keeps Rufus' attention on her with a long list of complaints and demands.

 _‹"Am I to stand in the sun and the stink all day because this same sun has obviously poached your wits?"›_ she demands, pouting and sulking. If she were him, she'd have knocked her unconscious long since. She's being incredibly annoying. She wonders if women really act like this. Here or anywhere.

It's exhausting.

#

Rufus sends two of his men ahead to the city to get a litter for her and to tell the Emperor she's coming.

Emperor. More information. _‹"Who rules here?"›_ she demands.

 _‹"The House of Julian, of course, Noble Lady. This is the thirtieth year of the reign of Julius Livius Caesar and his noble wife Claudila."›_

 _‹"Then I shall rejoice to be among kindred. But you are beginning to bore me, Centurion. Go on about your business. I will wait here with my slaves until your people arrive -- eventually -- to serve me."›_

And run like hell the moment his back is turned.

 _‹"Noble Lady Julia, we cannot simply leave you here in the middle of the road. You have been attacked by bandits once. You must allow my men to protect you."›_

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Major Harper. He looks like he's about to have a fit. She holds up her hand. _‹"I must attend to my slaves. They do not speak or understand Language."›_ Without waiting for a reply, she goes over to Major Harper.

"Well?" he says, keeping his voice low.

"Don't look at my face," she says quickly. "I've told them you're my barbarian slave."

After seeing York, nobody's in the mood for jokes. Major Harper looks at the road.

"Here's the deal. His name is Rufus Armoricus. He's the commander of that century -- army -- over there. I've managed to convince him I'm a noble Roman lady, but he expects me to go to the city with him. I can see if he'll let the rest of you go…"

"No chance, Doc," Major Harper says quickly. "We're not leaving you in this hellhole alone."

She doesn't dare argue with him in front of Rufus, though she wishes he'd go. If he did, there'd be someone to rescue her later.

"Brief your men, then, Major. You're all my slaves now." She pats his chest, as you would pat a horse, and returns to Rufus.

#

Less than an hour after SG-5 leaves, Sergeant DiGrazzia phones home, calling for a medical team to the Gate Room. It's 8:15 in the morning. Daniel, O'Neill notes, has made it to the Control Room in record time when the 'Unauthorized Offworld Activation' was announced.

At first he seems relieved when Walter announces he's receiving SG-5's IDC. Then the wormhole dissolves, and they're all looking down at the ramp at three -- only three -- people, one of them obviously badly injured. Daniel's the first one to reach the Gate Room floor.

"Where's the rest of SG-5? Where's …Dana?"

"Careful," Rice says to the medical team as they enter. "The Doc said she already gave York four shots."

The corpsmen lift York onto a gurney with practiced efficiency, wheel him away.

"General Hammond," DiGrazzia says. "Colonel O'Neill. Dr. Ballard and the rest of SG-5 are still on 194. They're okay so far. We ran into a bunch of Roman soldiers and they had to stay behind to cover our retreat. Chambers and Levine and Major Brenner are all dead. They were all… crucified, sir."

"'Cover your retreat,'" Colonel O'Neill says. "Shooting?"

"No, sir," DiGrazzia says. "Dr. Ballard was… talking. In some other language. In Latin, I guess. To one of the soldiers. She, uh, she was yelling a lot, sir. Major Harper said we were to come back and stay."

"No further orders?" O'Neill asks.

"There wasn't time. Dr. Ballard told us we weren't supposed to talk at all. She thinks that's why they killed SG-4."

O'Neill glances at Daniel. From the expression on Daniel's face, everything that DiGrazzia's said makes too much sense.

#

The litter arrives all-too-quickly. She lets Rufus help her into it -- he'll take it as a mark of favor, but the real reason is because Major Harper missed his cue. They don't teach you how to be a slave in GTO&T. And Major Harper never went through it anyway.

She knows she's expected to draw the curtains, and she does. A proper highborn lady wouldn't want to be seen dressed the way she is. Her 'slaves' are expected to carry her litter. She explains this to Major Harper, making sure her voice sounds properly contemptuous, hoping that neither Rufus nor any of his men know English, though it's a possibility they do. The Marines do a pretty bad job as litter-bearers. She has to hold on tight to the frame to keep from being thrown out. It's horribly uncomfortable.

The litter reeks of perfume. The cushions and pillows are covered in brightly-dyed wool. She wonders whose vehicle this is; there's a bowl of fruit, several other objects she doesn't recognize, and even wine. It tastes like sugared vinegar. She manages to spill most of it instead of drinking it, but to ignore all the amenities would not be in character with the woman she's pretending to be.

She's getting seasick.

It's about two and a half kilometers to the city, by her guess. So, almost five from the city to the Stargate. Maybe they can get away tonight. Even if they all lose their GDOs -- she expects to be offered a change of clothes as soon as they arrive -- they'll just go to Chulak, or some other safe place without an iris, and figure out how to get home from there. She knows a lot of places to go that know how to contact the SGC. Long way home, but better than ending up on one of those crosses.

The Norse practiced a form of crucifixion as well. They called it 'riding the tree.'

There are no bodies for the last klik or so, though she sees poles. No crosspieces, though. The criminal was tied to the crosspiece, and brought it with him to the place of execution, where it -- and he -- was tied and nailed to the upright.

They reach the city. The gates are open, and as they go through, she wishes desperately that Major Harper wasn't carrying her pack. She'd give anything to be able to video this.

She's in Imperial Rome.

She views it through a crack in the curtains. It's the ancient city to the life. She's been in modern Rome, of course; this bears a weird similarity, as if it is the bones of that more familiar city, and someone has suddenly ripped off the flesh of twenty centuries to let them stand out stark and new. Only the language is not quite what she expects: fast, slurred, and clipped, the vowels have rolled and shifted in the score of centuries since these people were stolen from Earth by the _Goa'uld_. She listens meticulously. The patrician class will speak Language differently from that which she hears on the streets, but passing herself off as a citizen of True Rome will help. And she will pick up the shift quickly when she's spoken to.

Most of the century heads for its home barracks once it enters the city, leaving her with a smaller escort. She frowns. Weren't the Legions forbidden within Rome itself? She doesn't remember. Not her field, not her period. No time for a refresher before she came through.

The centurion stops in the middle of the street for a long chat with an officer in a different uniform. She takes advantage of the stop to talk to Major Harper.

"Ma-- Harper?" A Roman litter's carrying posts extend from the sides. As her senior slave, Major Harper is, of course, at the front left.

"Doctor?"

"I think they're taking us to the palace, because I've told them I'm a relative of the Emperor."

He chokes slightly.

"Don't worry; I think I can carry it off. But they'll split us up there. You'll be in the slave quarters. Locked in, I think. _Don't_ try to escape. They'll kill you if they catch you and there won't be anything I can do. I'll try to send for you. And don't assume no one can understand you."

"Copy. Will they let you?" Major Harper asks.

"If this is anything like Ancient Rome, Major, highborn women take their slaves to bed. Why should I be any different?"

She ducks back behind the curtains before she can see his face.

#

They debrief DiGrazzia and Rice, but they don't get much, and they won't be able to get anything at all out of York for two days, maybe three, Brightman says. All that DiGrazzia and Rice can tell them is that Dana told them that they mustn't speak English. That the road to the city was lined with the bodies of crucified people, including SG-4. That only York was still alive. Rice remembers that Dana asked them to check and see if anyone's legs had been broken, and that none of them were.

"They have to have been crucified more than a day ago in that case," Daniel says reluctantly. "Certainly more than three hours ago. Crucifixion was supposed to be a slow painful death."

O'Neill looks at General Hammond. His face is grim. Someone else sent the radio message they heard. And if it was SG-4's execution, it was recorded earlier. Played to trick them into sending a rescue party.

DiGrazzia and Rice explain about the Romans showing up, sixty of them. Probably through the Stargate, although they didn't see it to be sure. The animals in cages.

"The Doc told us all not to say anything again," DiGrazzia says, "and then she walked right up to the head guy. At first I thought he was going to hit her, but he didn't, and all of a sudden she's screaming at him -- in Latin, I guess -- and stamping her foot and dancing around like she's lost her mind."

O'Neill looks at Daniel, eyebrows raised.

"I'm guessing she picked the quickest way to convince the Centurion she was a woman of high status," Daniel says after a moment's thought. "Roman society was very stratified. If she couldn't do that, he'd either ignore her… or kill her. All of them."

"Well, she sure put up enough of a fuss for us to be able to get York out of there," DiGrazzia says. He shakes his head admiringly.

The two Marines are dismissed. O'Neill and Daniel remain.

"We've got to get them back," Daniel says.

O'Neill doesn't bother to mention that Harper and Ballard _are_ the extraction team. They can't keep sending more people. And they don't know for certain that SG-5 is in trouble.

Not yet.

"Dr. Jackson, we sent SG-5 and Dr. Ballard in after SG-4," General Hammond says. "At the moment, they've completed their mission objective and may report back in at any moment."

Daniel looks like he wants to argue. Probably watched too many gladiator movies as a kid.

"Daniel, if it was a problem that could be solved by shooting something, Major Harper would already have shot it, trust me. Let Dana talk to 'em. They'll be _glad_ to let 'em go after a few hours," O'Neill says. Daniel can talk his way out of almost anything.

So Dani can too.

#

Their additional escort -- palace guards? -- joins them. They are, as she suspected, headed for the Imperial Palace.

 _‹"Lady Julia?"›_ A new voice outside the curtain.

 _‹"Who speaks?"›_

 _‹"My name is Marcus, Lady. In the name of the Goddess and the name of Caesar Livilus, I wish to extend to you the hospitality of Roma Exilis, and to express our pleasure that you have come for the Games."›_

Roma Exilis. Rome in Exile.

 _‹"The fame of your games extends even to True Rome,"›_ she says noncommittally. The Romans worshipped many gods, but the Gods of the City were so sacred that their names were never mentioned. She wonders which of Rome's other gods he's referring to. She knows she doesn't dare ask. She's supposed to know.

This isn't her period. It's four thousand years and more too late for her. If this were Ancient Egypt, she'd know exactly what to do. Of course, if it were Ancient Egypt, it would be overrun by _Goa'uld_. Are there _Goa'uld_ here? She knows there were once.

She thinks, tentatively, that if there _is_ a _Goa'uld_ still ruling PNX-194, it isn't here right now. It would almost certainly have taken SG-4 prisoner and interrogated them, not executed them immediately.

They arrive at the Palace. Major Harper and his men carry the litter through another set of gates, into a courtyard. They set it down. A stola is brought for Dani to wrap herself in before she steps out of the litter. She remembers just in time to cover her head. Fortunately they had eyeglasses in Ancient Rome. Hers won't cause much curiosity.

She gestures to the four Marines, regarding Marcus sternly. _‹"These are my slaves. They do not speak or understand any civilized tongue. I have had them from childhood, and I expect them to be treated well. They are brave, and loyal, and fierce protectors."›_

 _‹"Have you brought them as a gift for the Emperor?"›_ Marcus asks, glancing at Major Harper. _‹"They look as if they would do well in the Arena."›_

Arena. Gladiatorial games. She shakes her head and remembers it is not a Roman gesture.

 _‹"No, Commander. My gifts for Caesar were with my baggage, and are lost. These are my personal guard. Naturally, when my father hears of my misfortune -- and of your kindness to me -- he will replace them all, and send more besides. Now, am I to be kept standing here all day?"›_

Marcus bows. _‹"No, Lady."›_

Two women -- slaves, by their dress -- come forward. She is obviously to follow them. Others -- men -- come for the Marines.

"Go with them, Harper," she says. "Try to be good."

Major Harper smiles sourly. He does his best to copy Marcus' bow. "Yes, ma'am."

#

Her boots clump loudly on marble floors. The slave-girls chatter, leading her deeper into the palace. They ask her questions: what is her name, where did she come from, was it a long journey, what happened to her clothes. She gives what she hopes are suitable answers.

She learns a lot.

This place exists to serve the Goddess and the Sacred City of True Rome. Every seven years the Games are held. This is a seventh year -- which explains, in the slaves' minds, why _she_ is here: travelers come from everywhere to attend. The Games last an entire month. They are in celebration of -- something untranslatable. The harvest? She isn't sure. It doesn't sound good, though.

There _is_ good news though. The Games don't start for several days at least. She should be able to get herself and SG-5 out of here by then.

She'd better. Because she strongly suspects that the Goddess of Roma Exilis will return for the Games. And she's pretty sure none of them wants to be here when she does.

Roman baths have been a byword for decadent self-indulgence for the last twenty centuries, and the ones she is led to are no exception. They occupy a huge vaulting room of multicolored stone lit by skylights. There are several noblewomen here -- some on tables being massaged, others soaking in the _caldarium._ The slaves are both male and female. It's easy to tell who they are. They're the ones wearing clothes.

"The Lady Julia Danae Amerigae of True Rome will bathe," one of the slaves with her announces importantly. _That_ gets everybody's attention.

The bath-slaves get her out of her clothes -- the boots give them the most trouble. Her scars cause much comment (a Roman Lady's skin is supposed to be flawless); she does not explain them. Her clothes and possessions are taken away. To object would cause too much suspicion -- they are supposed to be slave's clothes, beneath her notice -- so she doesn't. But now her gun, radio, GPS, GDO, are all gone. Along with dozens of other useful tools, from her pocketknife to her wristwatch. She wonders if she'll ever see any of them again.

The slaves guide her through the complicated process of the Roman bath. She is washed and oiled. Massaged. She soaks in the _caldarium._ Drinks wine and eats bits of sweet and savory things offered to her on trays. Her local accent is flawless now. Everyone wants to talk to her, and she uses the conversations to piece together a picture of the world.

This is Rome, yes, but a strange fantasy of Rome. Imperial Rome without an Empire. There are Roman legionnaires, but their purpose seems to be to patrol the boundaries of the Roman lands, protecting the realm from bandits and capturing runaway slaves. Most of the countryside is given over to farming, mines, and plantations where slaves and gladiators are bred.

The Emperors have long and peaceful reigns. Upon their deaths, their designated heirs -- or _somebody's_ designated heir, at least -- succeed them without significant riot or bloodshed. This is a toy Rome, designed to amuse … someone. But despite the fact that it is in many ways a denatured copy of True Rome -- as she inescapably now thinks of it -- Roma Exilis is still dangerous. It killed Chambers, Levine, and Brenner.

She has to get herself and the rest of SG-5 back through the Stargate.

How?

She hasn't met the Emperor and Empress yet. She'll know more then.

When she's finally finished with her bath, she's wrapped in an enormous veil, given sandals, and led off to the chambers that have been prepared for her. The wine and the heat have left her feeling a little dizzy. She didn't get quite enough sleep last night.

It's moments like these that are the most surreal ones in her life: walking through an ancient (modern) Roman palace a thousand light-years from home, in peril of her life if she speaks a word of English to the people around her, and thinking about being in bed with Daniel twelve hours before. She thinks it's probably about that long. It's early twilight here; the long summer dusk will go on for hours.

The rooms are spacious and well-furnished. The servants who accompany her there suggest that she may wish to rest before the banquet. It all seems very civilized. She thinks of the crucifixes lining the road to Roma Exilis. They're not barbarians here. Their cruelty is of a very refined nature.

She demands to be left alone, knowing the servants will be waiting just outside her door.

She examines her surroundings. Bed, chairs, tables. Wine and fruit: grapes, figs, something she can't identify. The walls are marble painted with designs of fruit, flowers, dancing maidens. There's a balcony. It looks out over extensive gardens. She sees other buildings in the distance, inside the garden walls, but isn't sure what they are.

They'll have to spend the night here. She's fairly certain of that by now. If she can manage to take her 'slaves' out riding tomorrow -- she hopes Roman women go horseback riding -- they can make a try for the Stargate then. If not, she has to find some other pretext to take them outside the walls. All of them. Together.

They've missed their scheduled check-in. (She wonders what happened to SG-4's MALP. It wasn't there when they sent the second one through.) If she can speak to the Emperor -- or perhaps the Empress -- tonight, maybe she can persuade them to let her go back to True Rome to speak to her 'father.' That should get them all back to the Stargate.

It's a waiting game. She tries to be patient.

At dusk, slaves come into the garden with torches. She sees the flicker of light on the walls.

Slaves come into her rooms to dress her for the banquet. Her hair is too short to style. They thread it with tinsel ribbons. The ribbons are stiff and they tickle.

The clothing they offer her is linen. Very sheer, but a lot of layers. The stola is poppy-colored. There are high-heeled sandals of gilded leather.

They paint her face. They perfume her. They hold up a mirror for her to admire the result. It's silver, but the image is very clear. The face is a stranger's.

The banquet is like negotiating a minefield.

She shares a couch with the Empress. Claudila is a grey-haired matron, but nobody's fool. 'Julia' is grilled mercilessly through every course. She thinks she manages to give the right answers.

Yes, of course she must speak to her father, Claudila agrees. But only the Goddess can give permission to use the _Portulus._ It will have to wait until after the Games. Meanwhile, she will be treated as Claudila's own daughter. Tomorrow they will summon the goldsmiths to the Palace and choose jewelry, as Julia is certainly mourning the loss of her own. A wardrobe will be provided for her. And she may choose personal attendants from among Claudila's own slaves. Tomorrow they will go to the Temple and make a thank-offering for her safe arrival. She will wish to see Roma Exilis.

Yes, she does, 'Julia' agrees. And certainly she wishes to see the Chariot races that lead up to the Games.

Claudila and Livilus wish to know all the news from the world their ancestors have left. Dani gives them a carefully-edited history of the last twenty centuries, painting a picture of a world in which Rome never fell, in which the Julian House still rules supreme.

 _‹"And the Goddess? Does the Goddess rule in True Rome as well?"›_ Claudila asks.

 _‹"How could there be any place in which the Goddess does not rule?"›_ Dani answers. Claudila is satisfied.

It's late when Dani gets back to her rooms, though she's one of the first to leave the banquet -- after the Emperor and Empress, of course -- but there's still one thing she has to do.

 _‹"Bring me the captain of my barbarian guard."›_ Now there's a sentence you don't get to say every day. _‹"His name is Harper."›_ She repeats the name until the slave can manage a version of it.

She waits for him as her -- new -- slaves ready her for bed. They remove the paint that she wore to the banquet. But now they want to paint her face again, as well as painting her in places that paint just doesn't belong. She stops them, which puzzles them greatly, but lets them perfume her again. She reeks. Oranges and civet. She hopes they don't bring Major Harper back before she's been re-dressed, because there are very few nudity taboos in Rome, and while she can manage to ignore being naked in front of the locals, being naked in front of Major Harper would take an entirely different level of concentration.

For bed -- or maybe as a Roman negligée -- they give her a long sheer floorlength tunic. It keeps slipping down off one shoulder. One wrong move, and it will be on the floor. (Without her in it.) As she waits, they offer her more wine. She's had way too much wine this evening, and she doesn't like wine to begin with. She cuts it with water until she can barely taste the wine, and drinks that.

Major Harper is taking a long time.

When he shows up, she understands why. His chest -- and probably many other things -- has been shaved. He's been oiled. He's wearing a short kilt of stiff white linen, and sandals. He's been perfumed, too.

 _Okay. We're all professionals here. What happens on PNX-194 stays on PNX-194._ She gestures. _Come here._

He walks slowly into the room.

 _‹"Leave us."›_ she tells her servants. They're staring at the barbarian, giggling. _‹"I will call you when I'm finished with him."›_ She just hopes she's got the local customs right, but judging from what she saw tonight at the banquet -- and the way they're presenting Major Harper to her -- she has. The slaves scurry out, closing the doors.

She gets into the bed and pulls the sheet up quickly. "Come on, Major."

"Doctor?"

"We need to talk. I just hope they aren't watching through the door, because there are limits to what I'm willing to do for the SGC."

He smiles at that and joins her in the bed. Huddled together under the covers, they exchange what they've learned.

SG-5 no longer has any of its equipment. They were bathed in the slave-quarters upon arrival, and it was all taken away, just as hers was. They're being treated well aside from that.

"I'll try to get it brought here tomorrow. It's my property -- according to local custom. If we can't get the GDOs back, we'll go through to Chulak or Edora instead of to the SGC when we get to the Gate. We can get home from either place with local help."

He nods. It's good to have a backup plan.

"Bad news: I think this is still an active _Goa'uld_ homeworld. But the _Goa'uld_ isn't here right now. Probably not a System Lord. Whoever it is, I think the locals are expecting them to attend the Games -- we've arrived on the eve of their big Gladiatorial Games, which is both good and bad; it explains to them why _we're_ here, but it does mean the _Goa'uld_ will be showing up soon. I've asked Caesar Livilus about using the Gate -- they call it the _Portulus_ \-- but it requires the 'Goddess's' permission to use it, so that's pretty much out. I'm working on an excuse to get us outside the walls. If we can manage that, we might be able to make a run for it."

"We've missed two check-ins by now," Major Harper says quietly. "If General Hammond was going to send anybody after us, they'd have been here by now."

"I know," she says. _'No one gets left behind.'_ It's the unofficial motto of the SGC. Despite that, there are a lot of reasons for General Hammond not to have sent a third team. _They_ were the rescue team. She doesn't know how much information DiGrazzia and Rice were able to convey, and she doesn't know if York has been able to talk at all, but by now the SGC certainly knows that this is a dangerous place for SG Teams.

The natives are hostile.

And SG-5 probably walked into a trap, because the condition of SG-4 and the timing on the message don't match.

Under those circumstances, General Hammond probably won't receive authorization to send a third Team. Even if he _could_ put together an SAR Team that was fluent in Classical Latin.

She knows he hasn't given up hope. He _does_ know who she really is. He'll be counting on SG-1's luck -- even if it isn't _his_ SG-1 -- to bring SG-5 home.

"I'm really sorry about this, Major."

Should she have let him get into a fight with the century? In addition to all the dead Romans, York would almost certainly have died. Maybe other members of SG-5. Was it worth the risk and the slaughter if there might be another way?

No.

She won't give up hope either. There's always a Plan B. Jack said so.

"Hell, Doc, when we get out of this, I figure I'll have blackmail material on you for the rest of your life."

"When we get out of this, I so own you." She sighs. The servants are undoubtedly listening. There is no privacy in a life with servants. She's lived on Abydos. She knows.

"Turn over. I'm going to have to hurt you now."

"What?"

"We have to make this look convincing. Well, as convincing as I intend to." She's brought him here for sex; that's what everyone's supposed to think. Had better think; Imperial Rome was a city of plot and counter-plot, and she has to assume its counterpart is just the same. If Claudila and her husband suspect anything peculiar is going on here, Major Harper will be killed out of hand, and the others will be questioned. Under Roman law, that means torture...

Major Harper rolls onto his stomach. She pulls down the sheet, gets up onto her knees. Judges what the appropriate angle would have been. Digs her fingers into the flesh of his back -- hard -- dragging them upward. Counterfeiting the marks made by a woman in the throes of passion. The welts will fade quickly. Her fingernails are very short.

The Major figures it out quickly. He makes a muffled sound of amusement. "Done yet?" he asks.

"Almost." She glances toward the door. "Ever seen a movie called _When Harry Met Sally?_ "

#

The next day Dani and Claudila tour Rome, and more pieces of the puzzle fall into place. The Goddess everyone keeps talking about is Juno Regina. In history, Juno Regina was one of the Patron Goddesses of Rome. Dani offers a pair of peacocks at her shrine. She isn't let to bring her 'barbarians' with her on the outing. They'd upset the people, Claudila tells her. Dani (/Dana/Julia; her _noms de guerre_ are starting to stack like cordwood and there's nobody to share the joke with) spends the day trying to introduce the topic of taking her slaves outside the walls with her -- alone. She doesn't get very far, and doesn't dare to press the issue too hard.

She _is_ let to have her 'slaves' equipment brought to her rooms, however. It arrives in a large chest that's there when she returns. To her surprise, everything's there: guns, radios, GDOs, watches, packs, clothing. It all seems to be in good condition. She turns off all of the radios but one. Tries it.

Nothing. (Of course, it won't work unless the Stargate is open and the MALP is there to relay, and by the time she can get the privacy to try it, they're way off-schedule for a check-in. But she'd still hoped.) She shuts down the radio and puts it away. The last thing she needs is for her chest of gear to start talking while she isn't there.

She dines intimately with the Imperial Family that night. Claudila warns her, gently, about too much familiarity with one's slaves too often. Dani takes the hint, and doesn't send for Major Harper that night.

#

Third day. She and the Empress go to the races, which are held at the Hippodrome, some distance from the Coliseum. Her obedience is rewarded: she is allowed to take the Marines with her. Claudila believes anyone would want to see the chariot races, and accepts Dani's plea that her slaves would be heartbroken to be left behind. Dani doesn't dare speak to them, beyond absolutely necessary commands. They are all dressed in short tunics now. The fabric looks like wool, or a wool-linen mix, similar to what was on the cushions of the litter. They look well-treated.

The races…

She saw _Ben Hur_ once, a long time ago, back home. (Sammy had been insistent that she had to see every classic movie _ever._ ) The real thing…

 _'Butchered to make a Roman Holiday.'_

The line repeats itself over and over in her head as she forces herself to sit calmly beside the Empress.

The light chariots shatter like kindling, flinging the drivers into the paths of the oncoming horses. Some are trampled to death. Some manage to scramble to safety if they can cut the reins knotted around their waists in time. She realizes over again what she had known from reading Classics: that the races are engineered to arrange for the maximum number of crashes. That the race goes, not to the swift, but to the one who gets to the finish line alive.

Men and horses die. The horses' screams sound very human.

The crowd roars out its approval whether people live or die, and Dani knows she's expected to approve as well, that to be a True Roman is to revel in the spectacle, the death. Because the pain and suffering of these races is not sport, it is a religious act, an offering to the Gods of the City, and only a barbarian would be sickened and turn away.

She cheers for the Blues, the Julian team, pretending to be who she says she is, for all their lives. The races go on throughout the day. The heat is numbing.

 _‹"It is so hot here,"›_ she sighs, fanning herself. Their fans are painted papyrus. She wonders where the papyrus comes from; the climate's wrong for it here. Through the Stargate?

 _‹"Not so at home?"›_ Claudila asks. The woman never stops probing for information.

 _‹"My villa is cooler,"›_ she answers, her mind drifting -- just a little -- with the heat. Berkeley had been a swift pain in a lot of ways -- as had UCLA, years earlier -- but it had been nice to be near the ocean. In California, desert and ocean were only a few hours' drive apart. When she'd ended up at Berkeley, she used to drive down to the beach at night and sit on the sand, staring out at the water. Wondering what the hell had happened to her life.

 _‹"In an ordinary year, I, too, would be at our villa in this season. But it is a Game year,"›_ Claudila says.

Dani wonders what Juno Regina comes to harvest. Hosts? _Naquaadah_? Something else?

The horns sound again. The slaves have finished clearing the track. New teams are led out onto the sand. The reek of perfume mingles with the reek of blood. Dani thinks she will declare that she has a sick headache tonight -- from the sun -- and say she is staying in her rooms.

By now she knows the way to the slave quarters. She could wait until everyone's asleep. Take weapons and their GDOs. Break SG-5 out and run like hell. But it's risky -- jailbreaks always are -- and she drooped very convincingly all the way through the last set of races. Claudila has suggested a picnic in the hills tomorrow -- it is cooler there. She thinks Claudila is growing fond of her; she still feels guilty when she takes advantage of someone's kindness or credulity, but it's been years since she let it matter. If Claudila takes her on a picnic, 'Julia's' slaves will attend her. It will be their best -- safest -- chance to escape. The GDOs are small. She can smuggle one out with her.

She's still debating between the two plans as they return to the Palace at the end of the day. She and Claudila share a litter carried by Claudila's slaves -- expert litter-bearers this time, so the ride is smoother -- Major Harper and his men are walking behind. Suddenly there's a sound of horns. All around them everything stops. The pedestrians begin shoving themselves into shops, into doorways, anything to clear the streets.

 _‹"Julia! Tell your barbarians to get up against the wall if you want to keep them!"›_ Claudila's voice is sharp.

"Harper! Against the wall! Eyes down!"

Major Harper and his men move quickly to obey.

The street is utterly silent now, and she hears the sound of marching footsteps. Claudila has closed the curtains of the litter at the first sound of the horns, but Dani's peeking out. Around a corner comes a troop of men like nothing she's seen before. Blond. Horned helmets, chain mail, and breastplates, but the armor isn't quite right for Northern Europe. They're huge. They look nothing like the Romans. Not one of them is under six feet, and most are taller. They look like Hollywood Vikings.

Psychotic Hollywood Vikings.

 _‹"Claudila. Who are they?"›_ she whispers. _‹"They look like Germanii."›_

Claudila smiles with pride, but her eyes are troubled. _‹"They are the Varangii. They keep the peace in the night watch. They were a personal gift to my husband from the Goddess. They answer to no one but him. They are ruthless."›_

What 'ruthless' means to a Roman is a concept Dani really doesn't want to explore. But it settles the question of whether to make a break for it tonight. By now she loves Major Harper dearly, but she's not completely sure that even he and his men and their P90s could take down the Varangian Guard. And if they have to shoot, they'll wake up the whole city.

She'll wait.

#

Claudila accepts her story of a headache, and sends her own personal physician to attend 'Julia'. Dani narrowly escapes having leeches applied to her temples. Instead, she accepts poppy juice in wine and snow compresses for her head. She pours the wine out as soon as he leaves.

Tomorrow they'll be outside the walls. They can go home. She misses coffee.

Desperately.

But very early in the morning -- it's barely dawn outside -- she is awakened by the sound of horns. The same ones that summoned the Varangians yesterday. The slaves sleeping in her chamber -- no reason to argue about that; it would only look suspicious -- are sitting up groggily, looking around.

 _‹"What is going on?"›_ she demands, but they don't know.

She demands hot watered wine -- she's going to be an alcoholic if she stays here much longer -- bread, and news.

The slaves hurry to obey, and soon return, bringing both wine and news. Visitors have come, and the gates of the city are sealed. No one is to leave the City at all, for any reason. Her slaves know nothing more. She cannot act as if she cares.

No picnic today.

She goes to bathe and insists on being dressed. It's far too early for either, but she can't sleep now. Did she guess wrong? Should she have tried for the riskier escape? She covers her nervousness by pretending to be in a vile temper, taking a long time over her clothes and jewels -- in four days she's accumulated more of both than she owns of anything remotely analogous back home -- insisting on being re-dressed several times, finding fault with everything. The slaves put it all down to excitement at meeting the new visitors. They're used to this. And since she's never hit anyone, they don't think she's a bad mistress. She knows this because they talk among themselves as freely as if she weren't here.

She shares her breakfast with them -- feeds all of it to them, to be completely accurate. She really wasn't cut out to be a Roman. They coax her to go walking in the gardens. The fresh air will soothe her, they say. They fuss over her, feeding her bits of fruit, pinning a gossamer stola to her hair with jeweled pins.

The trouble is, some of the things about this place are too familiar. They make her want to go home -- not to the SGC, but to a place that no longer exists here.

 _Dana're, you must eat, you are far too thin since you have been sick. No man will look at you if you are so thin. You cannot shame Skaara that way…_

Skaara had still been a boy, but he would have grown up to be her lover. She would have given sons to him and his wife.

She goes to walk in the garden. The sun is high. Perhaps nine o'clock? She has to find a way to see Major Harper today. A slave -- a very senior slave; she can recognize the distinctions now -- finds her and her attendants. He tells her she is summoned by the Empress.

He tells her to leave her slaves behind.

#

She's brought to a room she's never seen before. It contains three thrones. One above two. All three are white marble. (The whole room is white.) Livilus and Claudila are seated on the two lower thrones. Rufus Armoricus is standing beside them. They all look frightened. There's a woman seated on the highest of the thrones. She wears a golden mask covering her entire face.

The floor is covered with weapons and equipment, all laid out as if to display. SGC weapons. SGC equipment.

The doors close behind her.

 _‹"This is the woman who claimed the barbarian criminal?"›_ the masked woman asks. She's a _Goa'uld_.

 _‹"Yes, Goddess,"›_ Rufus answers.

She expects the _Goa'uld_ \-- it must be Juno Regina -- to strike him dead, but Juno doesn't. _‹"What is your name?"›_ the _Goa'uld_ demands.

 _‹"Julia--"›_ she begins.

 _‹"Your true name!"›_

It's almost funny. Even if she tells the _Goa'uld_ her name is Dana Ballard, she'll be lying. If she tells the thing her name is Danielle Jackson, it'll probably go up in smoke.

She smiles and says nothing.

The _Goa'uld_ stretches out her hand.

The ribbon weapon burns.

The last thing she hears before she loses consciousness is the _Goa'uld_ 's order to search her rooms.

#

"Dr. Dana Ballard, SGC. We have heard of the SGC, and of the pathetic _Tau'ri_."

Ah, here's consciousness again. She's alive: she must be, she has a screaming headache.

Same room. Livilus and Claudila are gone. A couple of Varangians are holding her on her feet. Well, dangling her a few inches above the floor, actually. SG-5's here with more Varangians. Major Harper and the guys look like they put up a fight.

And the _Goa'uld_ has found her ID tags.

"Not that pathetic." It feels odd to speak English again, but Juno Regina has addressed her in that language, so she might as well let Major Harper and the others in on the fun. "There are a few System Lords who'd tell you so. Oh, gee, they can't. They're dead."

She expects to be ribboned again -- or hit -- and is more than a little disturbed when she isn't.

"Why are you here?" the _Goa'uld_ demands.

"You invited us." It's true. This was a trap. The first message was sent when most of SG-4 was already dead.

"Not you. When I heard that other _Tau'ri_ had been taken and executed by my people, I arranged for the sounds of a similar execution to be broadcast through the _Chappa'ai_ each time it opened. I wished SG-1 to attend my games. Instead, you came. You are of no use to me. But you will provide some small repayment for my trouble just the same."

One thing's the same, though: the snake can't resist providing the usual Evil Overlord explanation. Too bad Dani can't tell Juno Regina that she actually managed to catch part of SG-1. Sort of. Not that she'd give her the satisfaction. "Just out of idle curiosity, what do you want with SG-1?" she asks.

But all that gets her for her trouble is (finally) ribboned again.

#

"Doc, don't you have _any_ sense?"

"No. Ow." She tries to sit up. Major Harper tells her to stay down. She feels something cold and wet applied to her forehead. "Ow?" she suggests again.

"That's a bad burn," he tells her.

"Ribbon weapons will do that," she says. No point in telling him she's been ribboned before. _Dana Ballard_ hasn't been. She's still alive, though. That's something. "All here?" she asks.

"So far," Major Harper says grimly.

They're in a prison cell somewhere underground. It looks oddly familiar, but she can't say why. Major Harper confirms that it isn't their slave quarters. They're fed on coarse bread and water, plenty of both. An hour after each meal -- they're fed twice each day -- they're taken, one at a time, to a latrine (also underground; this is a big place, wherever it is). The first time she's taken out, Dani's 'highborn' clothes are taken away and she's given a simple tunic and sandals that match the others'.

She's a slave, now.

It hardly matters. Major Harper's already torn up most of her stola to make cold compresses, anyway. She leaves her glasses back in the cell when she's taken out, so they don't take those.

It isn't that bad a burn. By the end of the second day, there's nothing more than a faint pink spot. Like sunburn.

Her headache's mostly gone, too.

#

"What do you think the snake wanted with SG-1?"?" Major Harper asks.

They've been here two days now. Not much to do but talk or sleep. Or plan escape. And escape is based on being able to jump the guards on one of the occasions the cell door is open. They're watching for their chance. The guards are watching them, too. Just as closely.

"Maybe trade goods. We know there's a bounty on them from the System Lords. If Juno had them available to bargain with, maybe she could move up in rank."

"We're not that valuable?"

"Guess not."

"So…? C'mon, Doc. Give. Don't spare my feelings."

"I'm guessing we go into the Arena. It would explain why we're not being tortured. Juno Regina wants us in good condition so we can put on a good show. So… what do you know about Ancient Roman gladiatorial games?"

"Not much, Doc. But I'm betting you're gonna enlighten me. Listen up, boys. Dr. Ballard's gonna give us a lecture."

#

She's right. Not that it was that hard to guess. They've heard the roar of the crowds all morning.

On the third day of their captivity, they're herded out onto the sand of the Arena. They've been held prisoner beneath the Coliseum all along. The Arena looks just as she imagined it would. The sand, the air, are baking hot. They're the last show before the lunch break. One of the preferred positions.

The Arena crew haven't cleaned up after the previous act. The bodies have been removed, but the sand is still clotted with blood. Perfumed water mists down from above, mixing with the slaughterhouse reek. There are dropped weapons everywhere. Dani hurries across the sand, picking up a spear, a trident.

"Come on!" she calls. She doesn't know why Juno Regina is letting them arm themselves, but she isn't going to waste the chance.

The Marines fan out, scavenging.

She passes the trident to Major Harper. He's already got a sword. One of the short ones. Barely more than a big knife. "This doesn't make any sense," he says.

"They want a show," she answers, guessing. "This is the Arena. Look--" She swallows hard. "They might keep us alive. If we put on a good show for them today." Or Juno Regina might just order them crucified. Or worse.

 _Play for time and never assume._

"Do what I do."

She looks around. Finds the Emperor's box. Juno Regina is in a box above it. The _Goa'uld's_ golden mask gleams in the sunlight. She steps forward. Bows.

 _‹"For the greater glory of Rome! We who are about to die salute you! Hail Rome!"›_

The crowd roars its approval.

She hears the creak of a second set of gates being opened.

A pack of hyenas come trotting out into the arena. They spread out, blinking at the light, and a few of them stop to nose at the blood on the sand. But quickly enough the big one in the lead -- a female, Dani thinks -- lifts her head, scenting something more interesting, and comes trotting forward. The others follow.

Hyenas are scavengers, but they're perfectly willing to take live prey, and the beastmasters of the Roman arenas were expert animal trainers. She's sure this pack has been trained to kill. She sees scars on their dappled hides. They're almost certainly veterans of the Arena.

Dani hefts her spear. She wishes she had a shield, but there weren't any. And a shield big enough to do her any good would have been too heavy for her to lift.

"Stay together," she hears Major Harper say. "And remember, Dr. Ballard says we have to make it interesting for these folks."

She only hopes she's guessing right.

She and the Marines bunch together. The hyenas circle them, looking for weakness. They make little yipping noises of anticipation, like dogs hoping to be fed. The one she's facing jumps at her. Her spear slides all along its ribs, opening a long bloody gash, but not doing real damage. Then -- almost by accident -- the point hooks inside its hipbone, guiding the spearhead into bladder and bowels.

She jams. Twists. Yanks it out again, because the damned thing is still coming, spilling intestines now, and the spear is the only weapon she has. She's killed Jaffa. She's killed humans. She's helped kill _Goa'uld_. She's never killed an animal before. Not like this.

It turns its head to snap at the injury. She sinks the spear into its neck and jerks it out. It's dying now.

She hits another one in mid-leap, spinning the spear like a quarterstaff. She can't bear to stab it, but she stuns it, and Andrews ducks in and sinks his sword under its ribs. They have their strategy now.

These Romans have never seen quarterstaff work.

She moves away from the Marines. She makes herself a target. The spear spins in her hands. It's heavy.

It hits with the force of a baseball bat, breaking bone whenever she finds a target. The crowd is screaming so loudly she can't hear anything. She turns, trying to watch every direction at once. How many dead? How many left to kill?

Her wrists ache. Her arms ache. The fight seems to go on forever.

She breaks a hyena's shoulder. It goes limping across the arena, back toward the door it came in through. The _bestiarii_ are waiting on the sand. They urge it back toward SG-5 with spears and torches.

Kennedy gets bitten -- on the arm -- but Major Harper kills the animal. Andrews throws a net over one and Serrati manages to club it to death.

The last five hyenas break and run. One is the one with the broken shoulder. Another has a broken jaw. The _bestiarii_ can't get them to approach again. They burn them with torches. The animals snap and cower, groveling on the sand, but they won't move, even when they're beaten with whips. SG-5 has killed more than half the pack.

The crowd begins throwing flowers down onto the sand.

"C'mon," she says.

Once more they approach the Imperial Box. She kneels in the bloody sand, and motions for the Marines to do the same. Looks up to where Juno Regina sits.

 _‹"Have we pleased you?"›_ she calls up, staring into the _Goa'uld_ 's eyes. Hatred nearly chokes her. _‹"Did we fight well?"›_

Juno Regina stares down at her. There's no expression on the golden mask, of course, but she sees the eyes flash.

 _‹"Would you ask a boon of us, Tau'ri?"›_ The _Goa'uld_ 's voice carries as if it is standing right beside her. When the Goddess speaks, the Arena goes suddenly silent. The quiet, after the noise of a moment before, is deafening.

 _‹"Free us! Let us carry word of your power and victory back to our home!"›_ She can barely get the words out, even though they're their only hope. The _Goa'uld_ are evil and utterly without mercy. Everybody knows that. But some of them also have a bizarre sense of humor, and sometimes there's something in that you can use.

It's worth a try, anyway. The worst Juno can do is say 'no' and torture them to death. And Dani's betting on the fact that Juno has a public persona that she wishes to maintain here.

There's a long silence.

 _‹"Two hours,"›_ the _Goa'uld_ says at last. _‹"You are free for two hours. After that, you are mine once more.›_ And my soldiers will serve you as I served your brethren," it adds in English.

Slaves escort them out of the Arena, onto the streets of Rome. They head for the city gates at a jog trot. Fortunately, Dani knows the way.

"What the hell did it say?" Major Harper demands. He understood the English part, but it wouldn't have made a lot of sense without the rest.

"She's giving us a two hour head start," Dani says. "Then she's going to crucify us."

"Have to catch us first," Sanchez says. "We can make the Gate in that time, right, sir?"

"It's only about five kliks," Major Harper says. "We should be freezing our assets off on Chulak in about half an hour. Think you can keep up, Doc?"

"Major, my first Team assignment was with SG-7. You're going to have to try to keep up with _me._ "

They reach the Stargate about half an hour later. Forty-five minutes out of the Arena. One hour and fifteen minutes until Juno comes after them again. They don't have watches, but Dani's always had a pretty good sense of time. No one has tried to stop them. Nobody's guarding the Gate.

Their MALP is gone. (Of course.)

"It can't be this easy," Major Harper says suspiciously.

"Can't something be this easy for once?" she asks, bending over and gasping for air. They've done walk-trot-jog all the way here.

Major Harper tells Andrews, Kennedy, and Sanchez to fan out, check the area for traps and ambush.

"Clear, sir," Andrews reports.

She's got her breath back. She runs up to the DHD, dials Chulak. (They have nothing besides the clothes they're standing up in. No weapons. No GDOs.) Nothing lights. Not the glyphs. Not the red crystal.

She tries again.

She dials one address after another. Every safe world she can think of that they could possibly get home from. But none of the addresses works. The DHD might as well be dead.

Major Harper wants to head for the hills immediately. That will only delay the inevitable: she's the only one who speaks Language. Anyone who sees 'barbarians' or escaped slaves in the hills will instantly turn them in. She knew Juno Regina's baffling clemency had to be some kind of trick -- but Dani's instincts tell her there has to be more to this little game than just a protracted hunt.

There is.

"What's…? Hey -- _look_!" Sanchez picks up a radio -- one of theirs -- from the ground.

Dani knows it's not there by accident. All their gear -- and SG-4's, for that matter -- was back in Roma Exilis. If there is a radio at the Stargate, it's because Juno Regina has left it here deliberately. Dani knows, now, that the Stargate will open to one address, if she dials it.

It's worse than useless. General Hammond can't let them come back. Not when they've been in enemy hands and can't prove who they are. Not when they're more than a week overdue. She dials home anyway.

"It works!" Sanchez says excitedly. He steps forward. She holds up her hand.

"SGC," she says. "It's the only address..." They've been watching her dial for the last five minutes. She doesn't need to finish that sentence. She meets Major Harper's eyes.

"Can't go home without a GDO," Major Harper says quietly.

She holds out her hand for the radio. When he hands it to her, she keys it on.

"General Hammond? This is Dana Ballard." She wonders what time it is there. PNX-194 runs about nine hours ahead of the SGC. It's about one or so in the afternoon here, so that would make it ... four? ... in the morning there.

"This is Sgt. Harriman."

"Walter. Good to hear your voice."

"We're waiting for your IDC to open the iris, Dr. Ballard."

"Problem there, Walter. Can I talk to General Hammond?"

"We're getting him."

"We'll wait."

"Is… the rest of SG-5 with you, Dr. Ballard?" Sgt. Harriman asks.

"All present and accounted for."

"Dan-- _Dana_!"

"Daniel." _Oh, this hurts._ "PNX-194 is under the direct control of a _Goa'uld_ named Juno Regina. She's got a real sense of humor. I wouldn't send anybody else here if I were you. She doesn't even bother with Jaffa that we've seen. She's got Roman legions." _And the Varangian Guard._

"Dr. Ballard, we have got to get out of here," Major Harper says.

"Major, where are we going to go? The Stargate won't dial out to anywhere but Earth."

 _"What?"_ Daniel again.

"Little problem. Juno Regina gave us a two hour head start before she hunts us down and executes us, but she's fixed the Stargate somehow so that this is the only address it will dial. Nobody here speaks anything but Latin, and the _Goa'uld_ has all our equipment. She left us one radio here at the Stargate."

"Open the iris!" Daniel demands of someone on his side.

"Now Dr. Jackson--"

Dani turns to Major Harper, lowers the radio. "If it's a choice between this and crucifixion," she says quietly, "I think we should just step through." It will be quicker. And probably a lot less painful. It's the choice Juno Regina wants them to have to make. That, and it wants the people back at the SGC to hear their bodies crash against the iris as they die.

Major Harper sets his jaw. Marines aren't big on suicide.

"This is General Hammond, Dr. Ballard. Let me talk to Major Harper."

She hands the radio over to Major Harper. He makes his report. Sighted _Goa'uld_. Were sunk by same. _Naquaadah_ in abundance, crazy Romans, no Jaffa.

"You know I can't open the iris," General Hammond says quietly.

"I know, sir."

They all know it. She does too. The stakes are too high. She motions for the radio. Major Harper hands it over. He's done. "Daniel?"

"Yes." He sounds stricken.

"Still there?"

"Dana, look--"

"We need to get out of here pretty soon, but is it okay with the General if I give you my final report?"

Major Harper frowns and taps his wrist. She shakes her head and nods toward the Stargate. This is important. And it might save somebody's life somewhere else. He shrugs, minutely, and settles back. They've got a little over an hour now until Juno starts hunting them -- not that it really matters. This is Juno Regina's last try to lure in SG-1, and when she realizes it's failed, she's going to kill them.

There's a pause. Conference away from the mike. "Yes. Go ahead. Look, we're going to think of something--"

"I don't have much time." She cuts him off. "After this we're going to run and hide. Juno Regina has to unblock the Stargate sometime. I'm going to give you my report in the local dialect. Maybe you can use it somewhere else. _Don't_ come back here: the _Goa'uld_ told me this was a trap for SG-1. I think she wants you as trade goods. I'll start with the opening of the _Aeneid._ That will give you the key. Okay? Be sure you record this. They talk fast here."

She rattles through the familiar lines of Virgil, the shifted, elongated, and slurred vowels coming effortlessly to her now after a week of practice, then switches without missing a beat to her report: the description of the city, the _Goa'uld_ , the political set-up, the fight in the Arena. Her theory about just why it was that Juno Regina left them a radio, and access to a Stargate that would dial just one address. _‹"And now my tale is told, Dan'yel. May the desert moons watch over thee,"›_ she ends in Abydan. When she shuts off her radio, the wormhole closes.

"Let's go," Major Harper says.

They move out quickly.

#

"It's her," Daniel says stubbornly. "It's them. Look, why would a _Goa'uld_ say goodbye to me in Abydan?"

"Daniel--"

"I know, I know, I _know_ a _Goa'uld_ knows everything its host knows! If she'd been …taken… it would know Abydan. But Jack--! Don't you think she'd have been trying to persuade us to open the iris instead of giving me the details of the cultural development on PNX-194? And… saying goodbye?"

"The _Goa'uld_ are subtle, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c says gently.

"Well if they're that subtle," Daniel snaps, "why didn't Juno just give her a GDO? Because if she _was_ a host, it would have her IDC, too." He sits back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at the table.

O'Neill's inclined to agree, especially now that he's read the translation of Dani's last report. It would be just like a snakehead to give their people the choice between killing themselves against the iris and being tortured to death. But they still can't go after them. By now they don't know where they are, or even if they're still alive. And it all comes down to the same problem. They can't bring them back to the SGC even if they can find them. They can't take the chance. Even if Dani doesn't have a snake in her head, any of the others might. She said herself they'd all been split up several times. Any of them could have been snaked out of sight of the others with orders to hide until they could get out of the Mountain. Their security and containment procedures are good, but they don't dare risk taking the chance of letting a _Goa'uld_ loose on Earth.

How the hell do they manage to certify them snake-free so they can bring them home?

"Dr. Jackson," General Hammond says, "Even if I agree with you, what do you propose I do about it? I cannot allow a _Goa'uld_ access to this facility."

"Cimmeria," Carter says suddenly, sitting forward. "Have them go to Cimmeria. It's an Asgard Protected Planet."

And Thor's Hammer will send anyone with a _Goa'uld_ \-- other than Teal'c, and he's snake-free these days -- directly to the Labyrinth.

"They'll never be able to get back to the Gate on PNX-194," Daniel says miserably. "If it will even dial anywhere but Earth. Juno Regina probably has half a legion sitting on top of it."

"Oh, I think we can handle that part," O'Neill says.

"Indeed," Teal'c says.

O'Neill just hopes they took the radio with them. And that they're still alive. If Juno Regina wants SG-1, they're going to give her what she wants.

He looks at General Hammond.

#

They've made it up into the hills alive. Good so far. They've got water. Still no food or weapons.

If they can steal a knife or an axe from one of the local villas some time after dark she can make quarterstaves, but she's the only one who knows how to use one effectively. Still, any weapon is better than nothing. They might be able to make slings. They can make another try for the Gate tomorrow. The _Goa'uld_ can't keep it blocked off forever. Especially if she ever intends to leave.

Juno Regina will never stop hunting them.

They keep moving, trying to stay oriented on the Gate, trying not to get lost, or too far away from it. They all know the address for home, but that's no good to them now, so each time they've stopped today, she's worked on teaching the other four the symbols for Chulak. She thinks most of them have it by now. She'll teach them all as many different addresses as she can. Whoever can reach the Gate when it's unguarded and working has to go through. And if something happens to her, she's not going to leave them stranded here. Major Harper still has the radio. She wonders if they should have kept it at all. Possibly Juno Regina can trace them with it.

Even with the sun starting to go down, it's hot.

 _I want to go home now, Jack._

 _We're working on it, Indy._

It just seems even more unfair that she should have to die in somebody else's dimension. Silly, but there you are.

Suddenly in the distance, they hear weapons fire. P90s. Grenades. Dogs in a distant villa -- but too near for comfort -- start barking at the unfamiliar sounds.

The radio crackles to life.

"Major Harper, this is Colonel O'Neill. Do you read?"

"This is Harper. I read you Colonel, loud and clear."

The SGC can't be mounting a rescue mission. They don't dare. One of them -- even her -- might be a _Goa'uld_. SG-1 shouldn't have come through. They're the ones Juno Regina wants. She starts to get up. Kennedy puts a hand in the middle of her back and thrusts her flat against the ground again.

"We are clearing the Gate for you. You are to proceed to Cimmeria. Do you copy?"

Major Harper looks at her. She nods. She can get them to Cimmeria. They still can't get home from there, but they'll be certified _Goa'uld_ -free.

"I copy, Colonel. We are on our way."

"We will not -- repeat not -- be here when you arrive. The Gate is currently operational to multiple offworld destinations. Good luck, Colonel."

"Copy that."

They get to their feet and run. Speed is more important than concealment now. Juno Regina may block the Gate again at any moment.

Three kliks, maybe six, down a bramble-covered hillside at dusk and they're all wearing mini-dresses and sandals, which are not adapted to running fast. She's cut to ribbons by thorns. The others aren't faring much better.

They hit the road and make better time. Another klik to the Stargate, past rotting bodies and ditches filled with bones. She's not in bad condition, but she can't keep up. She falls -- hard -- and Major Harper simply picks her up and carries her, slung head-down over his shoulder like a Sabine cliché, as he runs all-out. She'd throw up if there were anything in her stomach.

She loses her glasses.

How long to march a new set of troops out from the city? They _have_ to have heard the noise at the Gate all the way to Roma Exilis.

Major Harper dumps her on her feet at the DHD. There are bodies piled _everywhere._ She sees a couple of expended _Goa'uld_ shock grenades still lying on the ground. Not dead, most of them, then, but they're going to wish they were, soon. She punches symbols into the DHD. Three… four… five… six…

In the distance she hears horns.

Juno's called out the Varangians. (If this doesn't work, Dani promises herself, she _is_ redialing Earth and walking into the event horizon.)

Seven.

Wormhole.

"Go!" Major Harper shouts and she clambers awkwardly over a pile of legionnaire bodies. Trips. And goes sprawling through.

She lands on her face and rolls quickly to one side. Dawn. _Cold._

SG-5 jumps through behind her -- and over her. There's a moment's expectant pause.

Nobody vanishes in a flash of Asgard lightning.

 _"Nice_ dress," she hears Jack O'Neill say.

She gets to her knees -- it hurts; she's already scraped them bloody once -- and peers around. That blur in the distance must be him. She can tell, though, that he's looking at Major Harper and the rest of SG-5.

Daniel comes forward and helps her to her feet, hands her her spare pair of glasses. The world snaps into sharp focus.

"I really should buy these by the dozen," she mutters, settling them on her nose. It's good to be able to see again. "Thanks for the rescue," she says.

"Sam's idea," Daniel says. "We just had to figure out a place to send you to that it would be safe to bring you home from."

 _And clear the Roma Exilis Stargate so we could get to it alive._

"Daniel! Major Harper would like to put his pants on!"

Daniel grins and goes to dial them home.

#

By the time she's out of the infirmary a couple of hours later -- no stitches needed, but she's covered in patches of liquid skin -- showered, and dressed -- and still aching from a prophylactic rabies shot, though she wasn't bitten -- it's hard to remember that by her body's clock it was just this morning she was in a Roman arena fighting hyenas with a spear.

She has one of the weirdest jobs in the world.

According to her body, it's now evening. Night, actually, by now. It was dawn on Cimmeria, and it's noon here. And still March. And probably still snowing. She just has time to grab something in the commissary before the debriefing.

Daniel's waiting for her out in the hall. "Lunch?" he suggests.

Seeing Daniel again. One of the many perks of being alive.

"It's dinner for me," she says. "I hate Gate-lag. It's bad enough when the seasons don't match." _And if I run into one more Stargate that doesn't work the way it's supposed to, when it's supposed to..._ She thinks of Thule. Of the row of crucified bodies lining the Via Junia. The way York had cried when they took him down.

But York is alive.

"Dani?" Daniel says.

She looks at him. Blinks slowly. "It was a little rough in spots." He nods. Takes her arm. They walk down to the commissary.

Coffee, she thinks, should be a sacrament. And after several days of High Court Roman food -- followed by several days of bread and water -- she piles her tray with the carbohydrates of Earth: macaroni and cheese. Beef lasagna. Two slices of pie.

"You going to eat all that?" Daniel asks.

"More, if I could manage it," she assures him. "I am _so_ tired of hummingbird brains, quail eggs, oysters, fish of every description, and oh, let us not forget, _garum._ They put it on _everything_."

Daniel laughs. "Locusts?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "Better. _Mice._ The Major and his men had it worse, though. Or maybe better. They were my slaves."

Daniel cocks his head. "That must have been ... entertaining."

She'd really prefer it if the part about pretending to take Major Harper to bed didn't have to make it into her final report, but knows it will. How to phrase it tactfully?

"They got vegetable soup, black bread, and beer," she answers, leaving the larger matters for later. "By the time Juno showed up, I would have been happy to trade with them."

They take their trays to a corner table.

"So they treated you all right at first?" he asks.

She nods. "I spoke Language. I knew their history. I claimed descent from the Divine Julius. I said I'd come from True Rome, a place they still remembered. My guards, of course, were barbarians, which explained why they didn't speak any known language. My Roman servants, I explained, had been killed on the road by bandits who had taken all my baggage, which was why I had been reduced to the unutterable humiliation of wearing the clothing of my slaves. Even if they didn't quite believe me, they had to accept it. I really think I could have gotten us out of there if I'd just had a little more time." Her explanation is telegraphic, sandwiched between bites of food.

"But Juno showed up."

"For the games." She shrugs. "Our bad luck." Which is all it was, in the end. She'd known there was a _Goa'uld_ still active in connection with Roma Exilis. She'd just run out of time. That's all.

It's not that the mission was anything out of the ordinary in terms of unmitigated disasters stopping just short of everybody dying, and god knows she's seen her share of those, both back home and here. They're an artifact of the job. This one wasn't the first that's happened, and she's sure it won't be the last. It's just that somehow, this time, the aftermath seems to be different, in some way she can't quite put her finger on. She reaches for her pie.

"Hey," he says. She looks up. "We sort of got interrupted the other morning."

The other morning. A week ago. This is a much better thing to think about than the sound of Daniel's voice when she was preparing to say what she thought was her last goodbye. What had he been doing in the Control Room in the middle of the night, when even Jack and General Hammond had been elsewhere?

"We did."

"It's Friday, you know. Two days off unless we get called in again. Dinner, a movie? My place?"

Definitely much better. "Anything but _Gladiator_." It is going to be a while before she wants to look at anything connected with Ancient Rome again.

#

The debriefing goes smoothly, though General Hammond tells her he'd prefer that any future 'final reports' she makes be in English. She agrees, though she still feels it was important to get the sample of the Exilians' dialect back to the SGC and -- at the time -- she didn't think she was going to have a second chance. Jack finds the whole 'slave-boy' thing incredibly amusing, since they're all home and safe. Major Harper sounds pretty impressed by her part of the arena battle, which he explains in more detail than she does. All she was trying to do was stay alive.

York is recovering well, they say. It's going to be a while before he can walk, and longer before he can walk comfortably, but he'll be back on active duty eventually.

She's released to go home directly after the debriefing, as she's still on PNX-194 time. As soon as she writes up the final report, she can start forgetting the whole thing completely.

#

Daniel's dropped off his spare keys in her office. She stops by the Infirmary on her way out. Dr. Brightman directs her to York's bed. She goes and sits down beside it. Dr. Brightman's said he's still sedated and on painkillers, and will be drifting in and out of sleep. He looks pretty awful even now. Most of that's just bruising at this point, at least on the parts she can see. She wonders what his religion is. Not many people these days can say they've been crucified and lived to tell the tale. Of course, he can't exactly tell anybody.

Odd to be sitting at a bedside cataloguing someone else's injuries. First time she's done that on This Side. Rare for her to be in this position on The Other Side, for that matter. She's almost always the one in the bed.

But York will want to know they all made it back safe. He's just lost his whole team. He needs to know that nobody else died because of him. She's not sure Major Harper would think of that.

Jack would.

About twenty minutes later York opens his eyes. "Dr. Ballard." His voice sounds hoarse but strong.

"Hey, Lieutenant. Just wanted to let you know that SG-5 and I are back from scenic PNX-194 all safe and sound."

He takes a moment to think about this, his reactions slowed by drugs. "They didn't... hurt you?" he asks.

"Well, I had to dress up in a lot of funny clothes, take a lot of baths, that sort of thing. Sgt. Kennedy was bitten by a hyena. But we're all fine. And we're all here." He smiles, but she can see he's already drifting off again. "Get some sleep, York. I'll see you again in a few days."

"Yes sir," York murmurs, already asleep.

At last, all duties and obligations discharged, she's free to leave the Mountain. Daniel's house is a familiar place to her now. She's spent a lot of time here. Though not, it occurs to her, _with_ Daniel. She's always been here when he's gone. Not tonight.

She shakes the snow from her coat and hangs it on the coat rack in the kitchen to dry, sets her snow boots in the drying pan beneath it. Pads in stocking feet back into the living room. Glances at the fish. Not her responsibility today.

A nap would be good, she decides, picking up her go-bag from the couch and going through to the bedroom. Daniel won't be home for several hours yet -- more, if something last-minute comes up -- and she'd really like to be awake then.

In the bedroom she strips to her underwear. Pauses to admire the collection of flesh-colored patches covering her arms and legs. Pulls on a t-shirt. (One of his.) Climbs into bed.

#

When he gets home, Dani's Jeep is in the driveway, but none of the lights are on, even though it's dark. That's strange. He's not sure how strange, but he goes in cautiously just the same. Living room's deserted. He turns on the lights.

"Dani?"

No answer. Her coat and boots are in the kitchen. Both dry. He sets down his bags and packages on the counter. When he comes back into the living room, she's just coming out of the bedroom, pulling on his robe. She looks tousled and half-awake.

"Daniel," she says, sounding as pleased to see him as if he -- not she -- were the guest here. "I took a nap," she adds unnecessarily. "I wanted to be awake when you got here."

"Here," he says.

"Awake," she promises. "I'm going to... go get dressed."

"I bought beer."

Her eyes light with sudden mischief. "Ah. Want to get drunk and fool about then?" she asks, sliding into hard-edged Oxford vowels. For an instant she sounds just like Sarah, and it's jarring.

"Well... you're half right," he answers slowly.

She shakes her head in amusement and goes back into the bedroom. Watching her go, he can't quite make up his mind whether he's gone crazy, or gone sane.

#

It is more comfortable between them this time, as if they have a longer history together than one half-finished night. In one sense, they do. Their history, like their bodies, is an only-faintly-distorting mirror. Where either of them is uncertain, they quickly learn, turning shared tastes into shared experience.

He has missed home as much as she has. He pleases her. She pleases him. This time, there are no missteps.

What they do here in the night is not home. Not even, really, a fantasy. They do not truly pretend they are on Abydos. But it is a way to keep the memory of home alive.

#

Morning is different. She comes to consciousness slowly. There's no alarm to jar her awake. There have been no bad dreams, no night terrors. She hasn't been haunted by the memory of Roma Exilis. She brought SG-5 home alive, rescued York. The rest, in all its horror and sharpness, will fade quickly, as missions, even the bad ones, nearly always do.

The bedroom is more comfortable -- more welcoming -- than her own bedroom. A place where someone lives, rather than where someone just ... stays. After a while she props herself up on one elbow, watching Daniel sleep. It's nice, but a little unsettling. As if she were doing something...

Dangerous?

 _Don't be silly,_ she tells herself. Daniel is the last person in the world who would hurt her.

She'd like to go back to sleep, and knows she could, but it's nearly eleven. Better to get up, or she'll never turn herself around to the local timezone again. She slides out of bed, takes his shirt in place of a robe, and goes to the bathroom down the hall. She doesn't want to wake him. From there, the kitchen. Coffee.

#

"Come back to bed," Daniel suggests, nuzzling her neck. "Nice shirt." He smells of mint. She pours coffee for him. He takes the cup -- and the box of pastries they never got around to opening last night -- and walks back to the bedroom, glancing back at her meaningfully.

She follows.

In the light of day they talk about things they've never talked about before.

Old history.

First times.

Sarah was his first -- Sarah Gardner, her Simon -- and that surprises her. He'd waited to fall in love. She gave up her virginity in a spirit of clinical adventurism when she was seventeen.

"I wanted to see what it was like," she explains. "Everybody was always going on about it. So I wondered."

"And?" Daniel asks.

"Painful. Messy. Not very interesting." But she'd kept doing it at sporadic intervals, on the theory that something that obsessed so much of the human population had to have more going for it than that. There was nothing wrong with how her body worked. She knew that. It was just that her partners never seemed to work out. Either they wanted to be in love -- and she didn't have time for that with her courseload -- or they just wanted sex and weren't very good at it. Or she wasn't. For a while she'd wondered if she was gay, but that seemed to require even more time, so she'd decided that she wasn't. A brief affair with one of her -- married -- professors convinced her she'd just been picking the wrong partners. But she didn't really have time to spend being more selective about something that mattered so little. So she'd let the whole thing drop. "And then along came Simon Gardner," she says, sighing.

"English?" Daniel guesses. "David Jordan's research assistant?"

"Oh yes. I imagine he probably looked pretty much like your Sarah. So you'll see why I fell." She knows that Simon isn't the only one whose gender is reversed here. Shylac's. Merry McKay's. Probably that of a hundred other people -- more -- the two of them have never met. She rubs her cheek against his shoulder. "He said all the right things at first. Admired my work. We talked about getting married. But Simon wanted... a research assistant. A compliant wife. And a cheering section. After we were ...over... I went out to Berkeley to spare David." And because she knew she couldn't play the game of academic lies that both David and Simon had mapped out for her, the glorious bright future that involved toadying and groveling to a pack of hypocritical morons every day for the rest of her life. "And after that, Catherine. The SGC."

Jack.

#

"Well, Sarah and I were a little different. I, ah, don't think she wanted a wife. I just think she wanted me to notice her occasionally."

Dani says nothing, but he can tell she doesn't approve. Of Sarah's desire to be noticed, obviously, though he has a little more sympathy for that than he once did. At the time, he'd only felt betrayed, as if she'd led him on and then dumped him. Not quite what had happened. There was probably enough blame to go around. Sarah should have recognized an obsessive workaholic when she saw one. He might have considered paying a little attention to something that had happened less than seven thousand years ago. (He wonders what Dani and Simon's relationship was _actually_ like.)

"She's happy now, anyway. I got a letter from her last year. She's back in England. She's getting married."

Dani sits up abruptly. "How?" she says. "Simon was taken by Osiris."

And Sarah was too. But Osiris came back to Earth, because he was after the Ancient knowledge buried in Daniel's subconscious, knowledge that Dani does not -- will not -- have. Can never have, even if she'd never left her own universe and managed to survive Kelowna.

"Yes," he agrees. _Here, too._ "But Osiris came back to Earth hunting for me, because I'd Ascended. We took him prisoner, and the _Tok'ra_ were able to free Sarah."

She nods, slowly. Settles back down again. "So Osiris is dead here. Good. More coffee?"

"I'll make another pot."

"Right now?"

"In a few minutes."

#

Months pass.

Work still comes first for both of them. It's what destroyed her and Simon, him and Sarah. But she and Daniel, thank god, are not in love. It doesn't occur to her -- nor, she knows, to him -- that what they have should ever take precedence over some new discovery to explore. Some weeks they see very little of each other.

But unless he's offworld -- and she knows SG-1's mission schedule, just as Daniel knows her temporary assignments -- she almost always knows where he is, whether she sees him or not. And on the rare occasions when one of them stands the other up -- rare because they work in the same place, keeping the same hours, and enter and leave the Mountain more-or-less together -- whichever of them is the absent one is only a phone call away.

Neither of them assumes that the other's presence or absence anywhere means anything more than distraction or obsession, and they do not take these things personally. Whichever one happens to be paying more attention to the world at the moment shepherds the other one through it. That's all.

They have keys to each others' cars, homes, offices.

The problems that made their previous relationships fail simply don't exist in this one. But of course they don't have a relationship. Not in that sense. They simply know each other.

In every way that matters.

#

September.

"What do you mean 'they didn't destroy it?'"

General Hammond's on the phone when Dani walks into his office. He's sent for her. She isn't sure why, but obviously this conversation is taking precedence.

His face is a startling shade of red.

"'They couldn't get it to work.' Good! Do you know how much trouble that thing could cause if it _did_ work? I ordered it destroyed, not played around with! I want it shipped back here immediately." He looks up and sees her as he slams down the phone. "Dr. Ballard." General Hammond looks both surprised and uncomfortable.

"You sent for me," she points out. "But if this is a bad time--"

"No. Sit down."

She sits. And waits.

"I'd wanted to talk to you about going out to Area 51 for a while. They could use your help there. They keep asking us to send them Dr. Jackson, and you're just as qualified. But..." He stops. Whatever General Hammond intended to say, he's decided against it.

"'For a while?'" she finally says. Leave the SGC? She has friends here now. She has Daniel. She isn't really sure their relationship is healthy. Incestuous, narcissistic... Sha're is always with them. Daniel doesn't want to fall in love with anyone else. The relationships have always ended badly.

And Daniel is her placeholder for the man she can't have.

Daniel's told her about Ke'ra/Linea now. And about Hathor. She'd read about them, of course, but now he's told her. That's different. Daniel simply assumes she has no matching experience of Hathor, and she does not expect to ever explain otherwise. Hathor is too poisonous a memory to share. If Sammy and Janet hadn't found her, she would have bled to death. She still has nightmares.

But the last five months have been some of the best of her life. If not for...

"Say, three months?" General Hammond says, breaking her reverie. "That should give you time to settle in and get some work done. You'd still be a member of the SGC. We'd have first call on your time. Think about it."

"No, I'd... I'd... love to go. Really. That'd be great."

#

"Colonel O'Neill. Sit down."

O'Neill comes in to General Hammond's office. General Hammond is looking particularly grim.

"I got off the phone with Area 51 about an hour ago. They had some disturbing news for me."

 _If it's from Area 51, it can't be that bad,_ O'Neill thinks. At least if the bright boys in the white coats haven't managed to lose their _Goa'uld_ toys again. Sometimes he thinks they should just turn the place into an NID lending library.

"As you know, after the last time the quantum mirror was activated, I sent it there to be destroyed. I would have done it here, but we don't have the resources to destroy a block of pure _naquaadah._ " Hammond pauses.

"Oh, let me guess, General. They … didn't … destroy it."

"No. They didn't. And I'm damned glad now I kept the control device locked up here. They haven't been able to get it to work without it."

"Good," O'Neill says feelingly. "Have you told Dani, uh, Dana?" Because it's been almost a year and a half and she hasn't stopped looking, not for a single moment, for a way home. O'Neill knows this. Her single-mindedness would be impressive if it weren't so damned futile. If she ever does give up, there's going to be an explosion that will make the one that leveled Kelowna City -- in the other universe -- look like a wet firecracker. But how long can you hope for the impossible?

"No. I wanted your opinion. She'll be going to Area 51 for a three-month tour. I'm having the mirror shipped back here, and when it gets here, I'm putting it into the biggest block of concrete I can find and sitting on it until Major Carter can figure out how to destroy it. We can't just have people wandering into the SGC from other universes, Colonel."

He thinks about it. General Hammond is right. But using the mirror would at least give Dani/Dana a chance to go home. Even if it's into her own future. Assuming they can find the right place. "I think she should be told, sir."

"Your call, Colonel," Hammond says.

"I'll take care of it."

#

Most of Nevada is under quarantine due to fallout.

There's nothing at the site of Area 51 but a crater. A very large crater. A crater, in fact, just about the size of Southwestern Nevada. The shockwave from the explosion triggered slippage in the San Andreas and Mississippi faults. Hundreds of thousands are dead in California and the Midwest, and the death-toll is still climbing. The press is calling it a terrorist attack, though they're hard-pressed to explain why anyone would choose to bomb a relatively remote, relatively minor -- at least officially -- Air Force Testing Facility. That isn't doing anything to stem the tide of hysteria and paranoia. General Hammond's only satisfaction -- a bleak one -- is that he argued against accepting the Furlings' gifts in the first place.

There's no way to tell, now, whether they were booby-trapped, or whether one of the scientists just made a mistake. Telling the truth, even if he could, wouldn't help much, either.

For a little while he'd held out hope the Furlings would fix the damage they'd caused. That hope didn't last long.

 _"We are finished here," Raven says, rising gracefully to her feet._

 _Colonel Hopewell stares at her. He was hoping to get the Furlings to explain just what the _hell_ had happened. Is this an attack? A misunderstanding?_

"I don't understand. Have we offended you?"

"You have been ... precisely as we expected you to be. We are finished here."

No one is able to stop them when they leave.

#

She's packing, trying to figure out what she's going to need at the Nevada site. It's a way of putting off telling Daniel until she figures out what to say. She isn't running out on him. General Hammond asked her to go. She'll be back.

"I hear you're taking a trip?"

"Hi, Jack," she says from around a pile of books and papers. It's about to overbalance and fall. He grabs the top of the pile and sets it on her desk. "General Hammond told you?" (How else would he know?)

"Yeah, well, it came up in the course of the conversation. Sit down."

She sits. He's awfully serious. Is he going to talk to her about Daniel? They haven't flaunted their relationship -- they've done their best to keep it completely off the radar, in fact -- but she's always assumed -- usually correctly -- that Jack -- no matter which Jack -- knows everything he wants to know. And Daniel might have told him. Guys talk to each other. Daniel is a guy.

"This, yeah, well... We've got a quantum mirror."

It takes a moment for his words to sink in, and she's glad she's sitting down when they do.

"General Hammond sent the one we found on P3R-233 to Area 51 to be destroyed. Turns out they didn't destroy it. He's having it shipped back here."

She doesn't say anything.

"You could go home."

Home. But home _now._ Too late to warn General Hammond about the Furling gifts. Still no time machine. Too late to save SG-1. "That's not good enough." She has to force the words out. Her voice sounds ragged. Jack looks wary. Concerned. As if he thinks she's finally lost her mind. She's never told him she thinks she's solved the riddle. It's a theory. Jack isn't much for theory. But they're going to destroy the quantum mirror. She has to tell him now. She has to convince him to tell General Hammond not to do it.

"I have to get there in time to tell General Hammond about the Furlings. I can-- Jack, Sam needs to run a simulation on the _naquaadriah_ bomb. I have to go back to Kelowna, you see, and-- There might be a window! There _has_ to be!"

She bounds to her feet. Her whole theory comes tumbling out now. She knows she's talking too fast, pacing back and forth, waving her hands. Explaining about how the Furlings will have contacted her SGC, and offered them gifts. About how fairy gifts have to be paid for -- because the Furlings behavior is consistent with the fairy archetype in human history -- and that General Hammond -- _her_ General Hammond -- won't know that, and something horrible will happen if he accepts the Furling's gifts without paying for them. Explaining that she has to warn him, and she can't simply use the mirror to cross over and try to find a way to go back to the proper time _there,_ because her arrival in her own future before traveling backward will have established a Time Paradox and it won't work. Finally she runs down. Stares at him, hoping he'll understand. Or trust her at least.

"So ... you don't want to go back?" Jack asks, as if he's making sure.

"I've got to have a time machine. Here." There. She's said it. And it still sounds utterly stupid.

"A time machine."

 _"And_ the quantum mirror. I need both of them for this to work."

"And 'this' would be 'this' ... what? Because General Hammond is going to put it in a block of cement as soon as it gets here. Nobody's going to be going anywhere after that."

 _But you could get it out again._ The quantum mirror is, by all their analyses, a block of pure _naquaadah_. It has to be more than that, but they'd never studied it. She looks at his face, gives up holding out on him, and tells him her solution to the Furling riddle. And the rest of her plan.

#

He'd been right. The explosion would be memorable. It just wasn't the explosion he'd been thinking of. She sounds like a combination of Carter _and_ Daniel and way, _way_ too much coffee. Her plan is more complicated -- and lots wackier -- than the time Carter dialed Vorash's Gate into P3W-451 and used it to blow up a sun.

But ... that had worked.

"And you think you can save ... us?"

"If there's a big enough window between the time radiation in the lab reaches lethal levels and the time the bomb goes off, yes. If you -- if they -- can get to the Gate in that time from where we were that day... We can all go home. Jack, I'm not crazy. It's the answer to the riddle. The proper time and the proper place and home. I know it is!"

Maybe. Or it might just be Dani's obsession with undoing the disaster taking over from what passes for common sense here at the SGC. You couldn't change the past. But you could drive yourself crazy thinking you could.

"What if there isn't enough time?"

She takes a deep breath. "I don't know. I hope... If you don't -- if they can't-- I'd go alone."

He isn't convinced. Not that she could let them die twice. And ... there's something else. Something he can't quite put his finger on. But ... something.

"I will, Jack! I swear it! Look, if I -- wouldn't -- can't -- I'd just go now. _To_ now. But I have to warn General Hammond _before_ the Furlings show up. I have to!" She sounds frantic. It bothers him somehow, and he's not sure why. Not because she wants to get home. That seems reasonable. But ... something. Something.

"Maybe you'd just throw a note through the Gate." He isn't helping anyone commit suicide.

She looks oddly pleased with his suggestion. "I'll do that too. In case something goes wrong. But I _have_ to be there when the Furlings come. I think I can talk to them. Jack, it's my Earth, and something terrible is going to happen there!"

 _Now_ she's pure Daniel. 'Talk to the Furlings.'

"It already _has_ happened there," she adds quietly. "In this 'now.' Which is why I have to go back."

"Maybe we should just use the mirror to take a look? See what's going on with the folks at home?" He's giving her every chance to hang herself. Right now he doesn't like himself very much.

She shakes her head. "I thought of that. Look, even if nothing has changed, how will I find the right SGC using the mirror? If you haven't destroyed yours, mine must still be intact, too, only it's still at Area 51. And what if what the Furlings have done -- whatever it is -- has changed things beyond recognition? No. The answer is on Kelowna. It has to be."

Oh, General Hammond's going to love this, he really is. But it makes sense. A lot of sense. Unfortunately. He still doesn't think she'll leave Kelowna without her SG-1. But if she's right about the Furlings -- none of that made a lot of sense to him, but Daniel will know -- she's right that she wouldn't be able to find the right place through the mirror anyway.

"Time machine," he says again. It doesn't sound any better the second time. "And we do ... what ... with the mirror while we're looking for a time machine?"

"Put it in concrete!" she says, sounding slightly hysterical. "It doesn't matter. You can't hurt it. Chip it out when we need it."

"Yeah... I'm going to... You have a nice vacation with the geeks. Told Daniel yet?"

"Going to." He sees her look around her office as if she's never seen it before. There are piles of books and papers everywhere.

"Maybe he can help you pack. You look like you could use some help."

#

"Dani says the Furlings are fairies."

When Jack arrives in his office, Daniel has just gotten off the phone with her. She must have suspected Jack would be coming here next, and called to get to him first. She wanted to tell him about her temporary reassignment herself. That's ... nice.

He feels -- relief? Disappointment? He isn't sure. But he's glad she's taken the assignment. It's probably a healthy sign, that she's--

Giving up?

Making a better adjustment.

Their whole life -- his, hers -- has been a series of adjustments. Some of them are just harder than others. And she'll be back soon.

"Fairies?" he repeats tentatively. It's a learned response to the patented Jack O'Neill misrepresentation of any conversation that doesn't involve guns. He tries to imagine what Dani actually said.

"Yeah. Like ... fairies." Jack waves his hands. "And we shouldn't accept presents from them."

Fairies. Furlings. Fairy Gifts. Right. It's not as if they're ever going to get the chance to negotiate with the Furlings, actually, without solving an insoluble riddle, but at least he can figure out what Jack's talking about now. "Yes. Okay. Do you want the long explanation or the short one?"

"Just tell me whether she's right or not." Jack sounds frustrated. If Dani was explaining her theories of Furling cultural interaction with humans to him, no wonder he looks glazed.

"Well, without any Furlings around to talk to..." Jack starts to cloud up. "Yes. I think she's right."

#

Daniel's going to drive her to the airport. She spends the night at his house.

"Nick took you and not me because you reminded him of M-- his daughter." He's speaking English. That's unusual here. In their bed. In the dark. These conversations -- the ones about their history -- always take place in bed, crossing a dozen languages. But not at night, in the dark. The darkness belongs to Abydos.

What they have isn't incest and it isn't masturbation. It's adultery. Spiritual adultery, at least. She can face that clearly now. It's self-destructive. Fine. She can use a few self-destructive habits.

Would Jack mind? Would he care? Would he even notice? Jack-here doesn't know about her and Daniel. If he does, he's never said anything to either of them. She watches Jack-here and Sam together. Sometimes it feels like pouring salt in a raw wound. He actually touches Daniel more than he touches Sam. He doesn't touch her at all.

"Nick never forgave Mom for marrying Dad. You know that. But he--" She stops, seeing a conversational deadfall yawning before her.

"Wouldn't take it out on a child? The day of the funeral he took me out to a diner -- I had waffles -- and he told me some nice people would be taking care of me. He said I'd be in the way." There's only a distant bitterness in Daniel's voice, not real anger. It's decades ago. She knows, as if it had happened to her, what he'd felt. What she would have felt. If Nick had left her behind instead of taking her with him.

She rolls over and puts an arm across his chest. "I don't know why--" _Why me and not you, Daniel._ "I don't think he was in the will as my legal guardian. He just took me, because god forbid anybody should get in Nicholas Ballard's way when he wants to do something." (Daniel snorts faintly, agreeing with that part.) "I clung to him emotionally. He told me everything. His theories."

"They were why he and Dad fought so much."

"He convinced me. He made me believe him. Not hard to convince an eight year old that the Earth was once ruled by aliens. I think he liked having the uncritical audience."

"Yeah, Nick always liked an audience," Daniel says. "You saw him again?" The mutual shorthand of lovers and _doppelgangers._

"The crystal skull thing," she confirms. "I didn't want to. Not that I had a lot of choice. He never forgave me for refusing to champion his theories publicly. They'd never have let me graduate, let alone teach, if I had. But I never stopped believing. I always hoped that someday I'd hit the find that would redeem his academic reputation."

"No public lectures."

"Papers listing dating anomalies and cataloguing anomalous artifacts. Nothing that other people hadn't said. But they still called me 'Dani von Daniken.'"

"He... When I found out where he was, I started visiting him. He told me all his theories. I started digging around to conclusively prove him wrong. I just ended up convincing myself that he was right. We still argued. A lot."

"Landing platforms," she agrees obliquely. "It's so damned obvious. They talk about 'capping the Pyramids in gold,' but they weren't referring to metal. They were talking about a docking _ha'tak."_

"Yeah, obvious." Daniel sighs. They both know it wasn't obvious to anyone but them. Even Catherine wouldn't have endorsed her -- his -- _their_ \-- wilder theories if she'd known them.

She listens to him breathe. Which of them was better off? She'd loved Nick. He'd treated her as an equal. She'd followed him across the world as he searched for proof of his theories. Then he'd come back to the US for medical treatment -- a nasty combination of heart problems and spore-induced pneumonia -- and oOf course she'd come along to take care of him. It had been the first time she'd been in New York since her parents died.

She was twelve.

While Nick was in the hospital, Social Services came to the hotel. They'd dragged her out of her room by force when she refused to go with them. That wasn't to say they'd abused her -- they'd simply treated her as if she were incapable of understanding human speech. It took almost a month for her to find out that Nick wasn't coming to rescue her. He'd signed papers weeks ago to release her into Foster Care and left the country.

A few months later she was placed with a foster family. Her foster parents didn't abuse her either. They treated her like a mentally-defective survivor of some horrible not-to-be-talked-of experience, but they never abused her.

They returned her to the system after a while. She's always suspected they just gave up on her, though she'd never been really sure what they wanted. She _had_ parents, even if they were dead. She had a grandfather. The foster home was just a legal necessity.

After almost a year, she was placed again. The next placement was worse, in the sense that she heard a great deal there about God and 'a woman's place' -- which was apparently not in college. She found a social worker who was willing to help her petition for Early Emancipation, and entered college at sixteen. While she was in college, she found out that Nick had checked himself into permanent psychiatric care somewhere between Foster Home #1 and Foster Home #2. She never visited him. She was too angry.

Daniel's asleep now. She wonders if his childhood was better or worse. It's a period they've never really talked about, that gulf between eight and sixteen.

#

Dani leaves for Area 51 before the mirror arrives at the SGC. When it arrives, O'Neill goes to talk to General Hammond. Actually, O'Neill, Daniel, and Carter talk to General Hammond, because O'Neill is damned if he's going to have a conversation about fairies with the General.

Carter's run simulations of the blast of the Kelownan bomb. There's ten minutes between the time the test lab fills with lethal levels of radiation -- killing Dani Jackson and allowing the Furling to 'legitimately' remove her from her universe -- and the time the bomb goes off. The blast, Carter theorizes, triggers a reaction in the played-out _naquaadah_ mines beneath the city. Not enough of the material left to mine, but more than enough to increase the force of the biggest bomb the world has ever seen a thousandfold. It's all hypothetical, though, unless they want to recreate the original Kelownan device and blow up the city. It's a best guess, with an error margin of plus or minus ... eight minutes.

So assume ten minutes. Eighteen minutes would be a walk in the park, and two minutes is impossible. O'Neill thinks the three of them could have made it back to the Gate in ten minutes from where they were that day. But getting to the Gate will take every second of that, with no margin for error. Dani will have to be at the Gate before them, establishing an outgoing wormhole, or they'll never make it. And even if the time is right, either their mirror needs to send Dani to Langara, or the mirror on her side needs to be there -- something they can't arrange. As far as they know -- well, as far as _Carter_ guesses -- there's only one quantum mirror to a universe, and as far as they've seen, bodies only transfer from mirror to mirror. It's even possible that the destination mirror in Dani's universe has actually been destroyed the way it was supposed to have been here. The two universes aren't quite the same.

But all that aside.

While Carter has no idea of how to produce a time machine with the to-the-minute accuracy Dani needs, the idea that Dani wouldn't be able to locate her own universe after almost four years of change -- assuming there's a mirror on her side at all -- makes sense to her, especially when Daniel confirms -- _hypothetically_ \-- the potential for disaster in taking free gifts from strange Furlings. If Daniel's right about that, it also explains why Dani thinks it's more important to warn her version of General Hammond -- two years in the past, or four, or whatever it is -- than to just go home. If Dani's right about that, her _universe_ may not be there at all by now.

Nothing more to say. They don't know.

So they leave it at that. Whether it's the actual solution to the riddle the Furling has proposed or not, it's the one they're going with. To solve the Furling's riddle, all they have to do is figure out how to do the impossible. General Hammond agrees to seal up the quantum mirror in a way that will allow them to remove it from its concrete coffin again more easily than chipping away a whole big honking block of cement. (He does _not_ agree to let Carter study it just because they might use it someday.)

It's a while longer before O'Neill can put his finger on what was wrong with that last conversation with Dani, and when he does, it comes to him between one step and the next as he's walking down the hall to his office. O'Neill stops, staring at nothing.

 _He_ thought she was being perfectly reasonable to spend two years of her life -- it's almost that now; he remembers the exact day she showed up (March 12th) even if she thinks he doesn't -- trying to get home to Stargate Command (he knows damned well she still thinks of this place as the 'other' SGC) and then turn down the chance to go home (Carter could manage to figure out which dimension was the right one -- they all know that. It's worth a try, anyway) because it would keep her from carrying a vital strategic warning to General Hammond. Yeah, he'd do that.

 _Daniel_ wouldn't do that. It wouldn't occur to him.

O'Neill tries hard to think of Daniel in Dani's universe, their positions reversed. Daniel would yell, sure. He'd want to come back. But he'd adjust. After almost two years, he'd adjust.

 _She_ hasn't adjusted.

#

"Carter, are we sure that Dani's really Danny?"

Major Samantha Carter does her best to look helpful and noncommittal. She isn't sure what he's asking her. As far as she knows, Daniel's fine.

"Daniel Jackson? Dana Ballard? Two minds with but a single thought?" the Colonel prompts.

Oh. Why is he asking _now?_ "It depends," she answers, hedging her bets.

"On?"

 _Okay, let's see how simple I can make this explanation._ "Genetically, yes. Culturally, yes -- she comes from a universe that is almost identical to our own. In terms of life history, yes -- what she's told us about her life and Daniel's matches to a close order of magnitude. You could check that with Daniel, sir; I think they've discussed their past with each other."

She suspects they've done more than talk. She dropped by Daniel's house one weekend, and Dana had been there. She'd answered the door, barefoot, wearing one of Daniel's shirts and her own khakis. Sam has never seen anyone look so guilty. Daniel had followed her to the door; Dana had disappeared to the back of the house. Sam doesn't have any idea of what she said to Daniel; she'd relied on Daniel's proven ability to blandly ignore the obvious. She thinks she remembers him saying Dana came over to play chess, knowing she wouldn't call him on it. She tries not to think about them not playing chess. Because it's just ... cosmically weird.

"Three votes in favor," Colonel O'Neill says helpfully.

"But socially," Sam goes on bravely. "They start to differ. A lot. Because she's--"

He raises a hand, and she's sure he's about to draw hourglass shapes in the air, but he doesn't. "Not a guy?" Colonel O'Neill suggests.

"Yes sir. She's more aggressive -- physically -- than Daniel."

Dana's been here a year and a half. By now, Sam has sparred against her, keeping her Unarmed Combat recertifications current. She's seen Dana and Teal'c practicing both with wooden practice staffs and quarterstaffs, both of them fighting all-out. (She understood after that why Dana wanted to carry a quarterstaff on missions; it was deadly.) And Dana's fight with Colonel Stewart during GTO&T had instantly become the stuff of Base legend. It was Daniel's own oblivious efficiency in pursuit of a goal carried into a new and potentially-suicidal arena. Dana might have had a 'nasty accident' over that later; Sam suspects the Colonel had a quiet word with one or two people to forestall that.

"It suggests..." She stops, not really sure how to get out of this sentence.

"That she's really tired of guys asking her to go for coffee while they try to..." the Colonel raises his eyebrows suggestively.

 _'Look down her blouse,' I hope you're thinking, sir._ She hoped that was all; Dana had never said. It had been hard enough for Sam, in the military, as a General's daughter -- and even so, there were a few moments that had been downright terrifying. Academia could be even more poisonous, and there was less chance of, say, getting somebody court-martialed. _But nobody learns to fight that well because people ignore them._

"But she's still Daniel? Somebody else's Daniel?"

"Consistent with the difference in gender and therefore -- probably -- life experience -- yes. Colonel, if I may ask, why is this coming up now? Didn't we cover all this about a year and a half ago?"

"Yeah, well, she ... look, Carter. I'm just trying to figure out why she'd do something Daniel wouldn't do." He looks frustrated and slightly embarrassed. Now Sam's really puzzled. Dana's been gone for weeks, and hasn't had a chance to 'do anything' that Sam can imagine. Unless the Colonel has gotten a report from the Nevada site?

"It would help if I knew what it was, sir." _A fight. She's probably gotten into a really bad fight._ Sam only hopes Dana hasn't killed anybody by accident. She isn't trained for it, but that's how the accidents happen.

"She wants to go home, Carter. Still."

The explanation's a relief. And an anticlimax. And they already knew that. She regards Colonel O'Neill in puzzlement. "And … you don't think Daniel would still want to go home?" She's not going to second-guess him on this one.

"Yes. No. You know what I mean, Carter."

She knows exactly what he means -- but what does she say? That Dana Ballard -- Danielle Jackson -- intends to move heaven and hell for as long as it takes to get back to her own Colonel O'Neill, alive or dead? That she's modeled a lot of her behavior on his, which is why she seems less like Daniel than the Colonel expects sometimes? If Colonel O'Neill's personality is enough to scramble the brains of a _Tok'ra_ symbiote on short exposure, a shy socially-inept young linguist -- a young _female_ linguist -- certainly didn't stand a chance.

"You wouldn't give up, sir. And I'm sure her Colonel O'Neill is equally inspiring," she says at last.

#

There is a vast conspiracy of women dedicated to ruling the Earth through their cadre of oblivious, contented, and often confused male slaves. Jack O'Neill knows this. He just wishes that sometimes Carter would lighten up and stop talking in code. For Pete's sake, if Dani is Daniel, she isn't going to be using him as a role model. She's going to be doing the most annoyingly opposite thing she can think of.

Or maybe not.

Damn. He hates when women talk in their secret code. It's like listening to Science Geeks, except that Science Geeks _want_ you to understand. He considers just asking Dani, point-blank, why she isn't acting like Daniel. But he's afraid the answer will be ... long.

#

"She holds a great admiration for her Colonel O'Neill. It would not be inaccurate to say that she is in love with him," Teal'c says matter-of-factly. He presses the advantage he's gained, and the practice-staff slams into the padding over O'Neill's ribs.

"Now _that_ is an image I could live without," O'Neill says, thinking of Daniel. But she's not Daniel. If Daniel had ever filled out a set of BDU's like that, he'd probably still be Lord Yu's _lo'tar._

He's wrestling Teal'c for the staff now. The Briefing Book says avoid hand-to-hand combat with Jaffa, because they are 'way stronger than humans and will eat your lunch' (well, okay, maybe not in so many words, but that's the general idea), but O'Neill knows from experience that the slave Jaffa aren't used to being stood up to one on one, especially by a mere human, and there's always a split second of indecision you can use.

Unfortunately, Teal'c hasn't been a slave for a very long time. He's got the staff against O'Neill's neck now, choking him -- or he would be if this weren't combat drill and O'Neill weren't wearing full protective padding. To his pleased amazement, he actually manages a hip throw. Teal'c goes over and down. Game over. But the protesting twinge in his back reminds O'Neill that a desk job is looming on the horizon. The day will come when he can't pass his quarterly qualifying physical, and he'll have to leave the field.

But not this week.

"Is it such a bad thing to be loved, O'Neill?" Teal'c asks, getting to his feet.

No. But. Danny Boy is doing her, and probably has been since around the time of the PNX-194 mission. Daniel's pretty much incapable of keeping his feelings on any subject a secret, and that was also about the time Dani stopped looking as if she might bite anybody who made a sudden move around her. If they want to keep it a deep dark secret, the two of them have _got_ to keep their hands off each other in public. Touchy-feely and uniforms just _don't_ go together. Everybody would suspect the two of them of doing the deed whether they were or not. They finish each other's sentences, for crying out loud. And Daniel -- both 'Daniels' -- really should try to remember that he's fluent in Spanish, fair in German, knows at least enough Russian to ask for a beer and the toilet...

...and understands a lot more Farsi than he'd really like to. So he's actually got something close to real proof on this one. Which makes the idea that she's in love with any version of Jack O'Neill just ... wacky. But Teal'c is actually never wrong about these things. This is probably because he doesn't open his mouth until he's sure he's right.

"There are rules," O'Neill points out. He thinks of Carter. He tries not to think of Carter. She's his 2IC, directly beneath him in the chain of command. He can't even ask her out for a drink one-on-one. For himself, he doesn't care, but even if no charges were filed, rumors of inappropriate fraternization could destroy her career. He won't do that to Carter. He won't let that happen to Carter. That ship has sailed, anyway. Carter is ... seeing somebody. Outside the Mountain. Pete something. It's for the best.

Teal'c raises an eyebrow, saying nothing.

They hit the showers.

Carter wouldn't give up.

He thinks of Carter in a universe where her counterpart is male. The image makes him smile. Carter, a guy. But if she were ...lost... somewhere, Carter wouldn't give up trying to do the right thing -- whatever she'd decided it was. Two years, ten -- fifty -- it wouldn't make a difference to her. Out of duty. Yeah, sure, there's a reason the O'Neill clan has brown eyes.

He sighs and resigns himself to it. It's not like there's anyone here to argue with except himself. Of course, when Dani gets back from Area 51, he can sit her down and have a long talk with her about why she can't--

Whatever.

And she'll get that stubborn Daniel look on her face and answer back to him in Furlings and vital military intelligence. All of which is, as far as they know, true. She's been here going on twenty months now. So the Furlings she wants to stop are over three years in her world's past. A reasonable woman would conclude that done was done. 'Reasonable' is not a word he'd ever consider applying to either Dani or Daniel. He feels better having a motive for her he can understand, but he'd really prefer it were something else.

#

Her friends have a coming-home party for her when she returns. There was a time she thought she'd never be able to think a sentence like that again, much less have it happen.

Daniel picks her up at the airport.

"I am so glad to be home," she says. She hugs him before realizing that Jack is standing there too. _And... so much for keeping secrets._ For some reason it doesn't worry her. No matter who Jack O'Neill is ( _which_ Jack O'Neill he is), she trusts him.

"Not tempted to stay and play with the geeks?" Jack asks.

"Enough is enough." No matter how many times she'd told them something wasn't so -- because she'd seen it wasn't so with her own eyes -- they'd insisted on hoping it might be so, because it would be so nice if it were.

Theorists.

"You need a beer. Several beers. And steak," Jack announces. "Come on. Teal'c's keeping the home fires burning." Jack tosses her duffel into the back of his truck and they climb into the front. (Her books have been shipped.) She sits between Daniel and Jack. Daniel drapes an arm around her shoulder.

"Sam went to pick up the cake," he says.

"Cake is good." The emails they exchanged while she was gone were formal, businesslike, infrequent. The unspoken subtext was the important part. _I'm still alive._

#

She's been here before. She's never been here before. In this situation. With these people. _These_ people. When did this become ...easy?

There are about half a dozen cars in Jack's driveway and along the street, including Daniel's Jeep. A small party. Beer. Steak. December is colder in Colorado Springs -- much colder -- than it is at Groom Lake. There's snow on the ground, but the sky is blue. It's bright and cold. Jack will be grilling on the deck, something he does in anything short of an actual blizzard, but they'll be eating inside.

Sam arrives a few moments after they do, bearing a huge sheet cake, chocolate on chocolate. It's decorated with the Starship Enterprise. Dani's already put her duffel in the back of Daniel's Jeep. He'll drive her home later. She greets her friends from the other Teams, sharing jokes, catching up on the gossip it's okay to share off-Base. York is back on Active Duty. He's rejoined SG-4.

Daniel's emails have prepared her for the major shocks. General Hammond is no longer in charge of the SGC. He's in Washington, the new head of a new department called Homeworld Security. The SGC got a civilian director, someone named Elizabeth Weir. Other things Dani only hears about now. Anubis attacked Earth (and lost). Jack got the wisdom of the Ancients downloaded into his brain again and then was frozen in a block of ice until he could be rescued by the Asgard. Sam was kidnapped by Fifth and also rescued. (She'll get to read the full details in the mission reports later, and maybe they'll make more sense then.) Now Dr. Weir is leaving. Jack is being promoted. He'll be a General. Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, CIC of Stargate Command. That means he'll be leaving SG-1. Dani wonders: will it make a difference for him and Sam?

Jack running the SGC. It's true that he ran it in one of the alternate universes Daniel visited, but...

"Wow."

"Yeah. He just heard a couple of days ago." Daniel is actually drinking a glass of wine with the enormity of the upcoming changes. Maybe _she'll_ have to drive them home. "Dr. Weir will be heading the Atlantis Mission; wait till you hear about what we found. And everyone in Washington thinks it's for the best that the SGC remain a military organization, now that they've seen the _Goa'uld_ up close and personal."

"Who's...?" She gestures at the shoulder patches he isn't wearing. Sam should get command. She deserves it.

Daniel shrugs. "Well, it's not like he actually has to make any quick decisions there."

#

Dani runs into Sam in the kitchen. She and Daniel are leaving in a few minutes, so she's making a pass through the living room, picking up plates and cups. It feels reasonable.

Sam smiles, transferring her handful of plates to a black plastic bag, both of them engaged in a gentle conspiracy to protect Jack O'Neill. Both women settled ownership rights to the Colonel -- soon to be the General -- silently long ago: Dani has never considered trying to trespass here. This is not the Jack O'Neill she loves.

Her use of tense, even internally, is precise.

And, in the final analysis, she does not know if (her) Jack's feelings for her -- were -- anything like hers for him. That he was loyal and steadfast could not be argued. That they were friends. That he would have died for her. _"They tell me it's my job_ ," she remembers him saying once. _"Rather pass that one on to the other guy."_

Whether there was ever anything more...

"You haven't met Pete, you know," Sam says idly as she ties up the trash bag. "We should get together some weekend."

"Pete?" she asks, puzzled. "Is he new?" _At the SGC_ , is the unspoken end of the sentence.

"Oh, no," Sam says. "Pete Shanahan. He's my boyfriend."

She can't understand it, she can't explain it, and she can't discuss it with anyone, even Daniel. It's absurd for her to be more upset by Sam's love-life than Jack-here obviously is. And it can have no effect on her own relationship with a dead man in another dimension. Whether or not it is conclusive proof that it never existed.

#

The first thing that happens after Dani gets back to the Mountain is the handover ceremony. She's always loved seeing Jack in Dress Blues, even though he hates to wear them.

He makes Sam a Lieutenant Colonel as his first official act. She looks completely stunned. Flustered. Happy.

Jack takes over the Big Chair. No one new is assigned to SG-1.

Later that week, he calls for a briefing on the Furling riddle. It's odd sitting at the conference table without General Hammond. With Jack in the General's chair. He still wears BDUs. No dress uniform, with or without coat and tie, for General Jack.

Dani learns that the quantum mirror is sealed in a hinged block of concrete -- locked shut -- in one of the Special Materials Labs. It requires a priority clearance to get into the lab, and alarms will go off anyway. Sam ran simulations for the explosion of the Kelownan _naquaadriah_ device while Dani was away.

"I ran the simulation several times. From initial overload to explosion there's a ten-minute window. Plus or minus eight minutes."

It takes a moment for what Sam's said to sink in. A ten minute window. (Or eighteen. Or two.)

She still doesn't have a time machine. But there's a window of opportunity.

#

The Kelownans unearthed their Stargate fifteen years before the SGC made contact with them. Originally it -- and most of the artifacts unearthed at the pyramid dig-site -- were all housed together in a museum downtown. Later -- after SG-1 had come through the Stargate -- it and its DHD were moved to the basement of the main government building in Kelowna City. She knows this only from mission reports, but it isn't important. The Stargate she needs to reach is the one at the museum -- the one four years and a quantum variation away. To reach it as quickly as she must, she'll need a zat. The people are going to die anyway, but she can't imagine herself killing them.

Dani has a detailed map of Kelowna City on the wall of her office now. She studies it until she thinks she can navigate Kelowna's streets blindfolded. She may have to.

If she's lucky.

There's only one thing left on her wish list: a time machine. She might as well wish for a pair of Ruby Slippers. The Stargate can send people back through time -- with the help of a solar flare -- but there's no way they know of to control the _when_ of your arrival. The erupting wormhole has to be synchronized to the split-second with an erupting solar flare, and they don't have the technology for that. The only time it had happened to them was by accident, and they'd ended up in 1969.

Thirty years in the past -- on Earth -- is useless to her. But at least she has a plan.

If they ever get a time machine.

#

Ringing in the new year, Jack hands her over to SG-15 for a temporary posting. She's back with Jimmy Pike and Paul Bukowski. The only one she doesn't know at first is Major Crestejo. If she wanted, if she tried, they could become her family.

Nepenthe.

Unbearable.

#

March. Two years almost to the day. Counterintuitively, it's Paul instead of Jimmy who makes the pass. She could have diffused it if she'd even noticed it was going to happen. Guys usually give you more than enough warning to get out of the way, Sammy always said. Dani has no clue.

They're in the wreckage of a _Goa'uld_ mother ship, pinned down. Jaffa are shooting at them -- the few survivors of the wreckage. There's something on this planet that kills _Goa'uld_ , and they were sent to find it; that's why they're here. That's why the ship has crashed. She's pretty sure that these Jaffa are dying. Still, they're shooting back _now._

"This is fun!" she shouts over the staff-blasts. "I like the peace and quiet -- the calm!"

"You couldn't handle peace and quiet!" Paul shouts back, firing at the Jaffa. They all have to shout to be heard.

"Bukowski! Can we bring some of the internal shields up? If we can block ourselves off for a few hours, our problems may be over!" Major Crestejo shouts.

"From the engine room, sir -- if it's not too damaged!"

"Take Ballard with you!" While she doesn't know how to make the stuff work, they all know she can read the displays.

While the other two distract the Jaffa, she and Paul head for Engineering. She reads the controls, he provides the power. Paul figures out how to get the engines on-line and bring up a couple of the interior force fields. On Paul's signal, Jimmy and Major Crestejo make a dash for safety. Paul raises the shields between them and the Jaffa. They're safe. Paul grabs her and kisses her with enthusiastic glee.

It's not the kiss that's the problem. The three of them have hugged before -- it's reasonable when you've just escaped death -- and both Jimmy and Paul have kissed her. But not the way this ends up. The way he means it to end up.

"We make a good team," Paul says huskily.

The thing that hurts so much, is that they do.

"It doesn't just have to be offworld, Dana."

Jimmy and the Major get there while she's still trying to find the right words.

#

General O'Neill -- that still sounds like crazy talk -- dials in when they're two hours overdue and reaches them by MALP-relay. Major Crestejo tells the General SG-15's situation. Jack consults with Teal'c, then tells the Major that the Jaffa should all be dead by morning. If they are, SG-15 can finish up and come home. Meanwhile they're safe where they are.

She knows she has to talk to Paul quickly. To tell him... oh god, not the truth. Not that she's seeing Daniel. Too many people at the SGC know that she's really Danielle Jackson. And the truth of the matter is that she doesn't know whether the man in her life is Daniel, or a Jack O'Neill she'll never see again. Either truth is sad. Because she and Daniel are ... gentle with each other. Physical lovers, but not emotional ones. And Jack has no more reality than a ghost. How long can you live on loyalty and stubbornness?

 _Loyaulté me lie._

Is she afraid to want more, or does she simply not want it? Does she actually love Daniel and not want to admit it, since she knows -- better than anyone in the universe -- the parameters of his feelings for her? Maybe she really has ... no one.

It doesn't matter.

She arranges to go off with Paul after they eat. It isn't much privacy with Jimmy and Major Crestejo just around the corner. But it had better be enough.

"Hey, Dana, when we get back, why don't we--"

"My tour with SG-15 is up in two weeks. I don't think we'll be seeing each other again." The sentence comes out as blunt as a gunshot. She can't look at his face. She tries again. "Paul, I think you need to know. I'm sorry. You're my friend, but--"

"But there's someone else, isn't there, Dana?"

"I wish there weren't!" Her cry is heartfelt; for one brief moment, if she could, she'd pluck out her heart, scour the traitor memories from her mind, anything to be free. To belong... somewhere. "I'm sorry, Paul. It's not you. You deserve someone really great."

"I'd found her," Paul says. She glances up quickly. He's hurt, he's unhappy, but there's still affection there. "No. I won't make trouble. But if you've got this guy -- or, okay, _girl_ \-- where are they? Why aren't they ever around? Nobody took care of you after P3X-4259. Or Thule."

She shrugs, and stares at the floor. Half-truths will only make things worse.

"I know, you don't owe me anything," he adds.

"I owe you a lot, Paul." She just can't tell him what. _Thank you for making me forget for a while that I can't be part of SG-1? Thank you for making it not matter?_ She should just send roses.

"Could you just tell me something, then? I won't tell anyone." He hesitates for long enough that she knows the question won't be innocent or simple. "Who are you?"

The question chills her; she's been expecting it for far too long. But not from a teammate.

"I went to look you up on the Internet when we got you, you know; I was sure you'd have published. But I didn't find you anywhere. Nothing." There's a long pause; she should find words to fill it and can't. "Dana?"

 _Sister, cousin, Asgard clone, nanite-grown daughter..._ Paul has saved her life more than once. He's making this easy for her, which is more than she deserves. She owes him something. "Dana Ballard isn't my real name. I can't tell you what that is."

"But they know?"

'They.' The SGC. She smiles at him, though it hurts. "Paul, who do you think gave me my nice new name?"

He thinks about that for a long minute. "Why?"

There has to be an explanation. One that he'll accept. The truth, then. Some of it. "Some people died. And the SGC offered me a job." Both statements are true, and they'll lead him inexorably to a wrong conclusion. "We've got a big day tomorrow. I'm going to turn in."

The next day they find an alien device in a temple about a mile from the ship. They don't dare take it with them -- since they can't figure out how to turn it off -- but that's somebody else's problem. SG-15 goes home.

She doesn't know what she'd say to Daniel about what happened -- almost happened -- and how she feels about it, but when she gets back, he isn't there anyway. He's on his way to Pegasus Galaxy in _Prometheus._ General Hammond's put together a rescue mission for the Atlantis Team, and has taken him along to translate the Ancient writings there. Daniel reads Ancient much better than she does. For the obvious reason. She moves into his house and feeds his fish until he comes back.

#

July 8th. The third birthday she's had on This Side. Next March will mark three full years since the Furling began its play. Sam buys her earrings as a birthday present and then teases her into getting her ears pierced. The earrings are tiny gold triangle studs, perfectly suitable to wear to work, if not though the Gate.

The first ones she's ever owned.

Her friendships don't stop at the elevator anymore, though Paul has taught her a new reason for caution. With Jack, and Sam, and Teal'c, though, that's hardly a problem.

It's Daniel's birthday, too; she buys him a book, of course. An original of a Cherokee Bible in the Cherokee alphabet; a language neither of them knows speaking at several removes of a religion both of them doubts.

He's gotten her an alabaster casket. Egyptian. Probably originally a makeup case. The sides are carved with a design of lotus leaves, though the gold that was once painted into the lines is long since gone. There are lioness-heads at each end, inlaid with lapis and carnelian. One of the heads still has its tiny gold earrings.

Egyptian objects are a problem for them. The culture is still their first love, but its symbols have become inextricably tangled for them with the _Goa'uld_. Who destroyed Sha're, destroyed Abydos. The casket is as safe, as neutral, as anything from Ancient Egypt can be.

In its way, it is a metaphor.

#

Ba'al has major backing from a still-unknown _Goa'uld_. Ba'al's Kull warriors are making short work of the other System Lords, re-drawing the lines of power. _Goa'uld_ are retreating to planets they abandoned centuries, even millennia ago, looking for bolt-holes. The _Tok'ra_ are pitching fits. SG-1 goes to retrieve Harry Maybourne (she has unfavorable memories of him from the Program's early days, but apparently Jack felt he owed the former Colonel Maybourne a favor) from one of these potential bolt-holes before its former overlord thinks of going back there. (Maybourne in _Goa'uld_ hands would be an intelligence disaster.) They don't bring him back. They come home with a time machine instead. You have to be an Ancient to make it work, but Jack has the Ancient gene.

She doesn't find out about it until ten days later. Jack calls her into his office. She can tell from his expression something bad is about to happen, but she knows nobody's dead. He makes her sit down.

"We found a time machine, Dani. And it doesn't work."

His explanation comes to her distantly, filtered through shock. Actually, the Ancient timeship can probably be made to work, given enough study. But it won't make _short_ jumps into the past. Not less than a century, Sam thinks. She needs to go back just a little over four years.

She doesn't know what she says. She knows she's calm. She's had practice being calm. She walks out of his office.

And keeps walking.

Game over.

#

Daniel's the one who tracks her to Arapaho National Recreation Area, thirty thousand acres of wilderness about three hours from Colorado Springs. By the time he finds her, she's been gone a week.

It's no different than living offworld. She's got a back pack full of Power Bars, a sleeping bag, some bottled water. She must have stopped and bought them somewhere, but she can't remember. She doesn't want to think. She isn't, in fact, thinking. About anything.

Daniel sits down beside her on her sleeping bag. He doesn't say anything for a long time. Eventually she sighs and leans against him. "You could use a bath," he says.

She doesn't answer. More silence.

"Work's really piling up, you know."

Silence. The sun is starting to set.

"So... you coming back?"

Back. To the only reality there is, or ever will be for her, now.

"Yeah."

No charges are laid against her on her return, although technically she's been absent without leave.

#

"Dani." Sam comes into her office and closes the door. She's been crying.

Sam never calls her 'Dani.' To Sam she is always 'Dana,' even when it's just them. Sam is careful to help her maintain the illusion she has to live with. But Jacob and Selmak are dead, and something's gone wrong between Sam and Pete as well, Dani suspects, although they haven't had time to talk about it yet. The whole SGC's still trying to put things back together in the wake of the combined Replicator/Anubis mess -- the _Goa'uld_ have been defeated (that's hard to believe) and the Replicators are gone forever, but such a sudden victory is nearly as chaotic as war, and everyone's scrambling. There's been talk of sending her to Dakara as Earth's liaison. She speaks the necessary languages fluently, a plus.

"Dani, it's been over a week. We haven't had any word. The _Tok'ra_ have scanned the space where the Replicator fleet was when it was destroyed. There's no sign..." Sam takes a deep breath. "You have to understand. He might not be ... back."

Daniel, she means. Sam is trying to tell her that Daniel is dead.

Dani gets up from her desk and puts her arms around Sam. "Don't be silly, Sam," she says chidingly. It's true that the Replicator ship was destroyed with him on-board, but he's only missing. He's died before, just as she has. They've both always come back. Daniel will come back this time. She's certain of this. She's been feeding his fish.

"Danielle," Sam says gently, watching her face. "People do ... die."

She nods. Of course people die. But not Daniel. Saucy Jacky and Sammy and Mr. T are dead.

Not Daniel.

"Just give him a little more time, Sam," she says.

#

Waiting at Daniel's house is more comfortable than waiting in her own apartment, so she's waiting there. It's three days later. She's staring into his refrigerator, wondering what should be thrown out, and if she should restock. Her cell phone rings. She checks the Caller ID. It's the SGC.

"Ballard."

"Hi. It's me. I'm ...back."

Daniel.

"Your fish are fine."

#

Catherine Langford dies. The loss affects both of them deeply, but only one of them can attend the funeral. Catherine has remembered Daniel in her will; her niece Sabrina sends Daniel several crates of Catherine's personal effects. Among them is a book showing that there's a ZPM in ancient Egypt. With a ZPM they can run the weapons in the Antarctic outpost, power the Gate to Atlantis. Power the Gate _in_ Atlantis.

Daniel argues that collecting the ZPM is a prize worth using the timeship for. Jack orders it shipped back to the SGC. But before the SGC can prep a mission, an expedition digs up the ZPM in Egypt. One of SG-1's video cameras is with it. SG-1 -- and General O'Neill -- have recorded a detailed, if confusing, message. General O'Neill doesn't need to send the mission at all. (Or, actually, SG-1 has already gone.)

And the timeship is still sitting there in the SGC.

#

O'Neill thinks he ought to put Dani up to head SG-13 as a permanent posting. She'd be good at bossing around a bunch of archaeologists, and he knows she wouldn't let them get into too much trouble. A civilian running an SG Team? He could make it stick. He's the head of Stargate Command, with the big chair and all the headaches. And, of course, all the fun.

But General Hammond's going to be retiring in a few months, which means the position of Head of Homeworld Security is going to be open. O'Neill's pretty sure he'll be offered the job. Strongly encouraged to take it, actually, politics being what it is. That means someone else will be running the SGC. Someone, he hopes, better than that tree-hugger Weir was -- it won't _be_ Weir, since she's undoubtedly driving the military contingent crazy and letting the scientists walk all over her in Pegasus Galaxy right now. Assuming, of course, that any of the people they sent on the Atlantis Mission are still alive.

Which is drifting from the point. He's almost sure he's going to take the job in Washington. (For one thing, it's the only way to protect the SGC from the damned bureaucrats.) Which means if there's any chance on Earth of sending their castaway home, it's going to have to be done soon. Hard to justify the expenditure of resources when there's no strategic application. (He isn't going to bother, on the theory it's always easier to get forgiveness than permission.) His successor is more likely to care about his performance reviews than about paying old debts, especially when they're someone else's, but O'Neill owes Daniel more than he can possibly ever repay. And he guesses that means -- by extension -- he owes Dani too.

He doesn't understand the science. It might as well be magic most of the time -- when it isn't just gibberish. (He suspects Carter makes most of her explanations up on the spur of the moment, actually.) But Dani said she needed a quantum mirror and a time machine to get home, and they've got both now. So... what's the actual problem here?

He assigns someone else to SG-13.

#

"Carter ... are you _sure_ you can't make it work?"

General O'Neill's come down to the big lab. It took them most of a day to get the timeship down here, inching it through the halls -- winching it directly down the thirty-story silo, the way they get the Stargates in and out, was simple by comparison. But she wants time to tinker with it before she has to send it back to Nevada, and they can't just leave it in the Gate Room.

"Actually, sir, I'm sure I--"

"Carter. _Work_."

She pulls her head out from under the console and regards him with a bewildered fascination for which there are no words. He's gotten a yo-yo from somewhere, and is ... _yo_ -ing it. Up... down. Up... down.

"Carter?" _(Up... down.)_

"Sir?"

"Little jumps." The yo-yo is moving horizontally now. He's actually quite good. Over the years she's had ample opportunity to become familiar with the General's fascination with toys. Paper airplanes. Tennis balls. Yo-yos. Kid's games.

 _(Back... forth.)_

A 'little jump', so Dana -- Danielle Jackson -- can go home. They have a quantum mirror and a time machine. There's no quantum mirror on the other side -- as far as they know. If they're going to get Dana home, they have to generate a dimensional transfer field from _this_ side. That isn't actually the hard part -- they can activate the mirror any time they want -- and finding where Dana came from isn't impossible either. Figuring out how to fly the timeship through the mirror -- and come back again, which means they need to bring it with them -- is really just an engineering problem. The real deal-breaker is figuring out how to get the timeship to deposit someone only four and a half years in the past...

She stares at the yo-yo. "You don't have to come back as far as you go out..." she says slowly.

It doesn't have to be done in one jump.

If they use the timeship to make a jump a hundred _and four (plus)_ years into the past -- or even farther -- they can jump forward to within four years of their departure point. The net result is that _they're still four years in the past._

They can drop Dana off. Jump further back into the past. Return to their own present. Like a yo-yo. No single jump is shorter than a hundred years. But they'll have the control they need to make what amounts to a short jump into the past.

"Carter? You've got that glazed look in your eye."

"I may have thought of something useful, sir. I'd like to run a few calculations."

"You do that. Just don't blow us all up."

"I only blow up suns, sir."

He's on the way out of the lab when he stops. Comes back. "Carter?"

"Sir?"

"You know you're going to have to hook the mirror up to the timeship too?"

She sighs. General O'Neill enjoys pretending he's an idiot, and it's true he's no astrophysicist (theoretical or otherwise), but nobody graduates the Academy, spends ten years leading a Gate Team, makes General, and becomes CIC of the SGC by being a naive Minnesota farm boy.

"Yes, sir. I can see if it's possible, sir."

"Okay," he says. "Good."

#

She's been called to a briefing. She's not sure what it's about. Usually she knows what a briefing is going to be about before she gets there. Maybe Jack is finally sending her to Dakara, but really, Daniel should go. He's got more credibility with the Jaffa, and they're going to need every ounce of that. The moment the Jaffa realized they were free, they immediately started fighting with each other. The specialists on 18 who know 20th century history find it hilarious. In a really bleak way.

When she reaches the Conference Room, Jack, Sam, Teal'c, and Daniel are already there. She checks her watch. She isn't late. She sits down behind the last briefing book and waits expectantly.

Daniel looks worried. Jack looks pleased. Sam looks like they've just handed her the keys to Christmas. Dani hasn't seen a lot of Sam in the last month. Special project.

"Carter?" Jack says. "We're all here."

"General. As you know, several months ago, the SGC came into possession of a functioning Ancient timeship. We knew the Ancients had been experimenting with time-travel, but until we discovered the timeship, we hadn't thought they'd been able to devise a practical method of applying their theories. As far as we were able to discover, the timeship was incapable of making short-distance temporal leaps -- in essence, you could go anywhere in time that you wanted, so long as it was farther than approximately one hundred years from your point of origin."

"However, this seems to directly contradict the information we discovered in the Ancient writings in the temple ruins on Maybourne's World." Daniel is speaking now. "The inscriptions cover several centuries of the planet's history -- extending into our future -- indicating that an Ancient visited there at close periodic intervals to make observations, using the timeship that we discovered and removed."

"So I realized that it must be possible to use the timeship to effectively make short jumps by going the long way around, using a sort of, er, yo-yo effect," Sam continues. "Each jump would still cover a century -- or more -- but if you simply didn't return to the same point that you started from, the net effect would be of a much shorter jump into the past -- or future."

"So... it will... work," Dani says slowly.

But there's still no quantum mirror on The Other Side.

"The actual problem, as General O'Neill pointed out, is in arranging the phase-shift between dimensions," Sam continues. "As far as we know, the quantum mirrors are designed to translate travelers only between mirrors, and we have to assume that your mirror has been destroyed. But I think I've found a way to hook our quantum mirror up to the time field. The ZPM should give us enough power to shift the entire ship across dimensions as well as through time. Of course, I'm not sure whether General O'Neill's Ancient gene will give him control over the dimensional field as well as over the temporal field, but we do have the control device for the mirror."

They're telling her she can go home.

"Dani, we can't actually …test this," Jack says. "It's your best shot, if you want to take it. The ZPM is going to Atlantis in about a week, onboard _Daedalus_. We could stop off at Langara on the way."

A ten-minute window. Or eighteen. Or two.

"Yes," she says, in a voice she doesn't recognize. "I'll do it."

 _Loyaulté me lie._

#

She walks back to her office with Daniel.

"Sam told me she thought the timeship might have been used for shorter jumps. She asked me to look for proofs in the records on Maybourne's World. She didn't want to say anything until she was sure."

"I know." It was a kindness, after all the disappointment and uncertainty. And besides, Dani's pretty certain that Jack -- even if he _is_ commanding the SGC -- isn't supposed to be using their irreplaceable timeship and fully-charged ZPM in a mad scientist experiment on the off chance he can send her home with it. She's just one person. They don't really know if it will work. If it does work, they don't know if the window on The Other Side is long enough even for her to make it through the Gate. If it isn't, she'll have gone for nothing. If it is, she'll have saved her SGC from the Furling gifts.

They reach her office. Daniel follows her inside.

"Dani. You don't have to... It's a _time machine._ It doesn't have to be now. Maybe Sam can figure out a way to test it."

And maybe she can't. And Jack won't be the head of the SGC forever. They all know General Hammond's retiring. She knows she's getting this chance out of friendship, because she's Other Daniel. She turns to him and leans her head against his chest.

"Daniel. You know nobody else but Jack will do this for me. And... I know the chances aren't good that I'll get through. But if I do, I can save ...my... Earth from making a terrible mistake. You'd do it, in my place."

"I would." He lifts her chin and kisses her gently on the forehead.

She turns away, still leaning against him, and gazes at her office. Soon to belong to a stranger.

"I've got a lot of packing to do."

He laughs just a little. "Leave it. We'll pack it all up and put it in storage for the next SGC linguist who drops in from an alternate dimension."

"So... you get that a lot around here?"

"You'd be surprised."

She walks over to her desk, looking around. There are so many things she wants to take, knowing she can't take anything beyond vital necessities. The _Daedalus_ is leaving in a week. It's barely enough time to get together the notes she's been keeping for the last two and a half years and write a report for General Hammond. If she doesn't make it through the Gate on Kelowna, maybe her report will. "I've got so much to do," she says aloud.

"I'll see you later then?" Daniel asks.

"Oh, yes."

#

The last days are like the first, a nightmare of work all aimed toward going home. Her report of her last two years, five months, and 26 days runs two hundred pages of tiny type, burned into special sheets of heat-resistant, waterproof, nearly indestructible paper. The pages are rolled tightly into a trinium cylinder that Sam makes for her. She's written a note and taped it to the outside as well, so General Hammond won't just throw it back when it comes through the Gate. The trinium cylinder is small enough to fit inside her shirt. She wasn't wearing a vest and gear that day. She can't wear one when she goes back.

She downloads copies of all of her work for the last two and a half years -- not vital, but nice to have if she can get them there -- onto a couple of CDs. She's taped the cases shut. She'll throw them through after the cylinder and hope they'll read them. Details of big finds, vital technology. Things she couldn't fit into her report.

Sam pulls up the photos of her that were taken the day she arrived. Dani's wearing her hair longer now, and they get it cut to match the photos again (her bangs are right at eye-level; annoying). They also check the uniform details of what she was wearing on that day. Everything must match exactly.

She's never changed her glasses, so that's okay.

She tries not to think about what she's doing. It has been more than a hundred days. It has been almost a thousand days. This has become home.

But Jack-there is not dead. SG-1 is not dead. The fact that the Ancient timeship will do what she needs it to do means that he -- that _they_ \-- are alive. They're counting on her. She won't fail them.

She can't say any of this to Daniel. Linguist and historian of language, she has no words to explain or describe her feelings. She doesn't want to leave. And she can't bear to stay.

Daniel will take care of the final details -- closing her apartment, her accounts, selling her Jeep, getting rid of her furniture, her clothes... He's her heir, since she has no one else, and in the event he should have died before her, the SGC has the legal right to dispose of the details of her life in the outside world. But since, in terms of what the world knows, she is not going to die (just vanish), there are papers to sign now to make things easier.

Twenty-four hours before they're to leave for Nellis to board the _Daedalus_ \-- Daniel's going too, to see Atlantis -- she's done. There isn't one more thing to do. Jack throws her out of the Mountain and sends Daniel with her.

The weather is cool. September. Fall. But nice enough for strolling, and they spend the day in ways they often have. Playing chess in the park, wandering through downtown. Dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant. They don't talk of what lies ahead.

Later, in the dark, he holds her while she cries.

#

Teal'c isn't with them on _Daedalus_. Since the Jaffa liberation, he's been spending as much time on Dakara as he has on Earth. Dani suspects there will soon be a new SG-1. She wonders who Sam will pick for the team. It's odd. She's going home to SG-1 -- if this works -- but there will no longer be (an) SG-1 here.

It's only a few days to Langara. They spend it going over the details of the mission one final time. It's a simple plan. On a scale of One to Blowing-Up-The-Death-Star it's maybe a six. (Okay, seven.) Jack will fly the timeship. There's no getting out of that; he's the only one who can. _Daedalus_ will enter Langaran orbit. The plan is to fly the timeship out of _Daedalus_ and into Langaran orbit -- conventionally -- then yo-yo to the proper time. None of them thinks that will be the hard part. Jack will never forget the day Daniel died, and the time-device is thought-controlled.

But after that they have to slide the ship _sideways._ And find the right _Kelowna._ She's studied maps, photographs, film. Both Kelowna Citys are identical. No clues there. The only thing that would have been different that day would have been ... her.

There's a 48-hour window before Entropic Cascade Failure sets in, and the ship has a cloaking device. If they undershoot just a little, they can listen for chatter on SG-1's frequency. She'll know for sure, then. It should also give her precise timing, so they can start the mission clock. Once they've found the right universe, Jack will land the cloaked timeship just outside the museum where the Kelownans are -- were -- keeping the Stargate.

She gets off the ship. Yells for the others. Makes her run for the Gate, zatting anybody who tries to stop her. Dials home.

Meanwhile, General-Jack takes off, getting as far away as fast as possible. Goes back in time to go forward in time. Goes _across_ time. Finding the right place should be easier, because _Daedalus_ will be there.

Sam has to come along in case the timeship breaks in a really spectacular way. Daniel wants to go too.

"Jack--"

"Daniel?"

 _"Jack--"_

"No. We don't know if this thing is going to work." ( _We think it might blow up,_ he means.)

"You're taking Sam," Daniel points out.

"And when you can fix a time machine, I'll consider taking you. You're here to read Ancient in the Pegasus Galaxy. If there's anything to read where we're going, _Dani_ will read it."

She reaches out and squeezes Daniel's hand under the table. He still looks disgruntled. She knows he didn't like this plan the first time he heard it, and that he still doesn't. There are things that can go wrong at every step -- and that's just in what's involved in getting her on the ground. After that, the potential for disaster rises sharply -- both for Jack and Sam, and for her.

But Jack wants to take the timeship for a spin, Sam thinks her jury-rigging of two unrelated advanced alien technologies will probably work -- and is wild to see if they do, Dani knows that for sure -- and another plus from the SGC's point of view is that as soon as they're sure they're back and safe they can unhook the quantum mirror from the timeship and launch it into Langara's sun, getting rid of it once and for all. Sam's calling her jury-rigged creation _'Tardis'_. Dani has no idea why.

"They'll probably stay on The Other Side long enough to time the explosion," she tells Daniel after the briefing. "The _Tardis_ will be safe enough in orbit. And it's going to be packed with recording equipment." Since Sam's only going to get one chance to play with her toy, she intends to gather all the data she can. It will probably take her years to analyze it all.

"Which means I'll know for sure that you're dead," Daniel says bleakly.

"Or that I made it. Jack's going to land right outside the museum. It won't take me that long to get inside and dial."

"And go through?" Daniel asks, pulling her into an alcove. "Or are you going to stand there watching the city go up while you wait for Jack and the others to make the Gate?"

"He said they could." Jack-here said that Jack and-the-others-there could, she means. Inter-dimensional pronouns are still confusing. She should invent new ones.

" _If_ they had ten minutes. Sam doesn't know that you do. You'll be at the Gate in less than five. Promise me you'll go through. You said warning your SGC was important enough to do this. It's more important than _...they..._ are."

Her notes, her reports, will be enough. She knows she can get them through. She cannot lie to Daniel.

"I'll try," she whispers.

#

"Lipstick," Sam says briefly.

Last check before departure. _Daedalus_ is orbiting Langara. They're in the Pilot's Locker Room. Her ID tags hang around her neck. _Danielle Jackson, SG-1._ After so long, it seems odd to wear them again. She's in green BDUs, just as she was the day she found herself in Daniel's office. Everything has to be exactly the way it was the day she was in Kelowna City with Jonas Quinn. The radio and the zat will fit into her pockets. She's supposed to be carrying the radio, anyway, and she can throw away the zat after she's used it. Her Jack can't know there's something wrong about her until she gets them back through the Gate. He'll dig in his heels and yell. They'll all die.

She looks at Sam, confused.

"When you came through, you weren't wearing..." Sam gestures at her face.

Dani goes to the sink and scrubs until her face is clean.

#

Daniel is waiting at the foot of the ramp. Waiting to see them off. Waiting to see _her_ off.

There's an outside chance she's going to be flying right back here sometime in the next two hours. Or dead.

She wishes he hadn't come. She's desperately glad he did.

"So... see you around?" he says.

"Yeah."

 _See you around, Dr. Jackson._

#

There are four seats in the cockpit of the _Tardis._ Dani sits behind Sam. Most of the back of the ship is filled with Sam's recording equipment and the Ancient timedrive. The quantum mirror sits in a Plexiglas safety cage, so that nobody can touch its surface accidentally. Sam hasn't turned it on yet. She's holding the controller in her lap.

They fly out of _Daedalus_.

"So far, so good," Jack mutters.

Sam has to encourage him for a while before he manages to make the timedrive work. They know it happens when _Daedalus_ suddenly vanishes and the cloud-patterns on the planet below shift abruptly. They flicker a second time as the timeship _times_ again. Now -- if everything has gone right so far -- they're _when_ they need to be.

"Now what, Carter?" He sounds remarkably calm.

Sam peers out through the canopy as if that could tell her what time it is on the planet below. "I think you should activate the cloaking device, sir. The Kelownans might be able to detect us, even in orbit, and we don't know how quickly we'll need to land once we make the transition."

"How do we tell if we're invisible if there's no one to see us?" he asks. (It's a reasonable question, Dani thinks.)

"I've attached a telltale to the main console, sir."

After a couple of tries, he gets that to light up, too. Suddenly they hear Sam's voice over the radio. "Colonel, I'm at the industrial museum not far from the art complex. It's fascinating, sir."

"Carter, Teal'c and I are in a park. A nice, green, park. Sites of cultural... interest. Daniel?"

"Ah, Jack, Jonas and I are about to go back inside the research facility we visited yesterday. I shouldn't be more than a couple of hours--"

"Nice... green..."

Jack twists a dial, lowering the sounds of the radio voices to a background buzz.

"How far did he get?" Jack asks. His voice is more than calm now. It's colorless. Somewhere down there Daniel is about to die. Again. And even knowing that he survived, that he came back, that his strange not-death somehow held the key to the destruction of Anubis, of the Replicators, Dani thinks that Jack still wants to undo this day.

"Ninety minutes," Dani answers. "I said pretty much the same thing. We were just going inside."

Sam nods. Apparently this matches her recollections of the day. "I'm going to activate the quantum mirror now, sir. After that, you should have control." She picks up the controller and presses a button. There's a whooshing sound, and the whole ship shakes. The lights dim.

#

"Whoa!" O'Neill yelps in alarm.

"I think it's synchronizing itself to the time field. I hope it is," he hears Carter add under her breath.

"This is a fine time to think of that, Carter," he says. He's reasonably sure they're safe. The explosion would have been visible from the surface. They're in a geo-synch orbit directly over Kelowna City now -- it was clear that day, and he can make out the coastline on the planet below. He'd been outside. If the ship had exploded, he would have seen it.

But safe here doesn't mean safe once they actually try to make this bird fly sideways.

There's no way to test it other than to test it.

"It's drawing a lot more power than I thought it would," Carter adds.

"Then we'd better do this. Any suggestions?"

"Think of Dani being a member of SG-1. Think of having taken her to Abydos instead of Daniel. If your mind can activate the quantum mirror, that might work."

He closes his eyes and concentrates.

#

Dani glances back. The quantum mirror is still dark, though she knows Sam has activated it. It should be showing ... something. Minutes pass. Neither she nor Sam dares say anything. Finally, Jack clears his throat.

"Dani, what were you wearing the first time ... 'I' saw you?"

She has to think about it. "Um... brown corduroy pants, work boots, and a navy hoodie. Oh, with a green hoodie unzipped over it." Before she's quite finished speaking there's a sudden flash, and the timeship seems to turn itself inside out. They're still in the same place, but now the quantum mirror is shining brightly, though it doesn't seem to be reflecting anything but a weird purple light.

Kelowna is still below them.

"Are we anywhere yet?" Jack asks, taking his hands from the controls and rubbing his temples.

"Try not to think, sir," Sam urges him.

One hour and fifteen minutes now till Daniel receives a lethal dose of radiation. Till _she_ receives a lethal dose of radiation.

#

It's been almost an hour. They're running out of time, and there hasn't been any more radio chatter. Jack reaches for the radio, obviously out of patience.

"You can't, sir!" Sam's voice is urgent. "It violates the laws of causality. You can't ask for a radio check. You'll hear yourself. And nothing like that happened that day, did it?"

"I didn't hear anything," Dani says. "But the research facility would have been shielded. Wait--" She grabs for the radio and punches the 'Talk' button several times, saying nothing.

 _"Anybody hear that?"_ It's Jack's voice. _"Carter?"_

 _"Right here, sir. It sounded like someone breaking into the frequency."_

 _"Well, I'm here, and Teal'c's here, and I'm talking to you. Indiana? Indy?"_

On the timeship, Sam and Jack stare at each other in baffled disappointment.

"It's the wrong--" Sam begins.

"No!" Dani says, her voice high with excitement. "It's the right one! Jack always called me 'Indiana.' You found it! I'm home!"

Over the radio, the voices continue. _"I think she's out of radio range sir. She may not realize it. There's a phone here in the museum. I'll get a call in to her on a landline."_

"Someone came saying there was a phone call for me that day," Dani says, looking stunned. "But I didn't have a chance to take it. The _naquaadriah_ core went into overload."

"It must have taken her -- me -- a while to find a phone and get through to you," Sam says.

Dani looks at her watch. Twenty minutes to go. Somewhere down below she is still alive and well, at least for the next few minutes. The last two and a half years of her life haven't happened to that other her -- not yet. There's no way to keep them from happening now. All she can do is wait until she's taken from the time-stream, and rejoin it in her Other Self's place. Anything else would lead to disaster.

But she's going home.

"You waited until _now_ to tell us they called you _Indiana_?" Jack says indignantly.

 _"Now,_ sir," Sam says, checking the mission clock. Jack starts their descent.

#

Daniel is his friend. Okay, his _best_ friend. Daniel is surprisingly clueless about what goes on between boys and girls. When the _Tok'ra_ decided that he and Carter were both _za'tarcs,_ it wasn't _Daniel_ who figured out why they'd both flubbed their little brain-detector test. He's watched Dani watch him and Carter. Studying them the way she'd study something somebody dug up and dumped on her desk. It isn't hard to guess the question she's looking for the answer to. And can't ask.

Because, when you come down to it, Daniel and Dani are more alike than they are different. And _he_ isn't the one she needs to ask.

#

"Thirty seconds, sir." Sam is gazing intently at one of the panels.

The ship is down in the museum plaza. Cloaked. They don't dare stay long, even if this Kelowna hasn't got all that much future. Dani moves to stand by the hatch. In a moment Jack will open it, and she'll run for her life. Run for all their lives -- the real SG-1's.

"Dani." She glances back. Jack is looking at her. "Tell him. Ask him. Use ... little words."

He looks away. The hatch opens and she runs.

"Sierra-Golf One-All. Code One! _CODE ONE!_ " She hears the ship take off behind her. She has the radio out, running across the Plaza. People move toward her, only trying to help, she knows. She zats them ruthlessly. She can't afford to be stopped. She takes out the guards as she goes up the steps. Through the doors.

"O'Neill. Indy? What--"

"CODE ONE, Jack! Get to the Gate! _Now!"_ Her voice cracks on the last word.

"On our way. Carter, you copy?"

"Copy, Colonel."

Dani reaches the (now-closed) museum gallery containing the Kelownan Stargate and its DHD. Her hands are shaking so hard she can barely dial. The wormhole stabilizes, and she punches out her identification code and transmits it. They looked up five-year-old IDC codes in the Other-SGC archives so she'd have the right one. The light shows green on her GDO. The iris is open. She switches frequencies on her radio.

"General Hammond, this is Dr. Jackson. I'm sending some files on ahead." She tosses the trinium cylinder through. Her hands are still shaking, but the most important part of the mission is complete. It's been six minutes. She digs in her pocket and throws the CDs in their cases through.

"Dr. Jackson, this is General Hammond. Are you all right?"

"Sir, we're coming in hot," she says. Adrenaline takes her out of herself, makes all of this seem unreal. "It may be as much as five minutes before the team gets here." If it's five minutes, it may be too late. "Keep the light on for us, please. Switching to tactical now."

"Sir, there's--" she hears Sammy say.

"I zatted a bunch of people at the museum," Dani interrupts hurriedly. "Don't stop for them -- you don't have time." _Please don't let them stop to wonder where I got a zat._

She hears running footsteps. Sammy is heading toward her at a dead run. But she doesn't go through. She stops beside Dani, looking confused.

"Sammy, _Go!_ "

"The Colonel and Teal'c are right behind me."

" _Go!_ I'll hold the Gate! God, please, Sammy _go!_ "

More footsteps, coming at a dead run. Jack. Teal'c.

"Go!" Dani screams. _"Go-go-go!"_

"Carter! Go!" Jack barks. Sammy steps through.

Teal'c's next up the stairs. He dives through after her. Dani hesitates, staring at Jack. After all these months -- _years_ \-- she's used to being the last one through the Gate on missions.

There's a flash -- or maybe it's the memory of a flash, something never really seen (even now) but imagined in years of nightmares. Jack grabs her and they jump through together. When they stagger out on the other side, she's clinging to him, fists clenched in his uniform.

Together or not at all.

#

"That was ... close?" Jack says, still obviously puzzled.

They're standing at the top of the ramp in the Gate Room. She's clutching his jacket. She can't let go. Did they outrun a nuclear explosion? What did he see in those last seconds?

"Ah... Indy? Indiana? You can let go now."

"Dr. Jackson? Can you explain this?" General Hammond is standing at the foot of the ramp, holding the cylinder in one hand, her note in the other.

 _'Indiana'. 'Dr. Jackson'._ She feels as if she's slipped into an alternate universe.

She has. She's home.

 _Home._

"Danielle Jackson informed us of a Code One situation on Kelowna. For this reason, we have returned ahead of schedule," Teal'c explains calmly. As explanations go, it isn't much of one, actually.

Sammy comes back up the ramp. She puts an arm around Dani's shoulders, gently prying her loose from Jack.

"Nuclear war? On Kelowna?" General Hammond sounds doubtful.

"The Kelownans discovered a new element, _naquaadriah_ , an unstable derivative of _naquaadah_. They were experimenting with weapons technology using the fissile _naquaadriah_ as a power source. The-- They blew up their city," Dani says. The speech comes almost pat, almost rehearsed. She's had two and a half years to think about it.

There's a pause. Sammy urges her down the ramp. She's shaking so hard that Sammy is the only thing holding her up. Sammy looks worried. _About me? I'm fine. I'm here._

Jack is following them. "Blew up the city? And you know this how?" he asks.

"It should be easy enough to check. Dial up Kelowna again and send a MALP through," Sammy says reasonably.

"You'll lose it." She's tired, so tired. All she wants is sleep. She hears her own voice coming from very far away, but she's determined to make them understand. "There are played-out _naquaadah_ mines under the city. The _naquaadriah_ explosion fed off the trace _naquaadah_ , made it stronger. There's nothing there."

"Indiana..." Jack is using his 'stop playing around' voice.

"I saw it. I've seen it. It's in my report. I've been to the future. I've been gone for almost two and a half years. But the good news is, I've found out who built the quantum mirror--"

#

"Dani? Can you hear me?"

She opens her eyes. It's Janet. "Janet," she says stupidly. "You're alive."

Janet smiles professionally. "Well, I should hope so. You're the one we were worried about. If Sam hadn't managed to hang on to you, you'd have taken a nasty knock."

"How's the patient?" Jack peeks cautiously around the edge of the privacy drape.

She doesn't remember passing out. "I'm fine," she says, feeling cross. It's over. She's done what she had to. Now life can start moving forward again.

"You're fine when I say you're fine," Janet says firmly. "Now take off your shirt. Colonel, that's your cue to make yourself scarce."

The first thing Janet sees is Dani's dosimeter. (Standard offworld equipment, but not visible; the only reason Dani was wearing one on Kelowna Part Two was because Sam-there was a completist when it came to equipping her.) When she does, Janet starts taking the situation more seriously.

"You and Colonel O'Neill came through together?"

"Yes."

Janet goes away, comes back.

"We'll need to run some tests and find out exactly how much radiation you two received. Meanwhile, I'd like to get a good look at you."

Soon Janet has her all the way down to her panties and a hospital shift. Her underwear makes Janet blink and frown; Dani's pretty sure it doesn't match what she had on the last time Janet saw her.

"Dani, where did you get this scar?"

"P3X-4259. About two years ago." Major Hightower-here is still alive. He and Sherwood and Christopher. She feels herself start to shake again.

"You didn't have it yesterday morning, when I checked you out."

 _Before we went to Kelowna._ "I went to Kelowna almost two and a half years ago." _And today._

"I see." Janet Fraiser would say 'I see' if Dani told her she'd gotten the scar working in a Turkish brothel. Or that all the System Lords had killed themselves and left her the Galaxy in their wills. "And when did you get your ears pierced?"

"July." She realizes with a clutch of grief bordering on panic that she left the earrings Other-Sam gave her behind. She knew she had to take them out so Jack wouldn't see them, and she'd automatically put them in the locker instead of in her pocket. She'd meant to bring them with her. She should tell Janet more -- _explain_ \-- but she's groggy and freezing and she can barely keep her teeth from chattering. Daniel. Other-Sam. That Teal'c. That Jack. All lost, all gone. Never to be seen again, touched, talked to. Turned to ash and autumn leaves like all fairy gifts.

To her horror, she starts to cry. She can't stop shaking. She can't breathe. She came to the wrong universe and she can't breathe.

"Nurse! I need some blankets here! Dani, I'm going to give you a sedative. Just a little shot."

"Oh no, oh please, Janet, I don't want to go to sleep--"

"Shh-h-h. Just a little one. It will only make you a little groggy. You're in shock. We're going to start an IV and get some fluids into you."

The blankets come. Janet makes her lie down again. The needle stings, and then spreads warmth along her veins. Without protest, Dani holds out her arm so that Janet can start the IV.

"Can you tell me what happened to you?" Janet says carefully.

"I've been gone for two and a half years. I was trying to get back. They all helped me--" _The Scarecrow, and the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy..._ Still Jack's favorite movie. There and here.

It hurts to smile.

"Dani, You understand that because of what you're telling me I have to call a Code, isolate you, and put you under observation?" Janet says carefully.

"Yes. It's all right." Her eyes fill again with tears, but not because of what Janet's saying.

 _Daniel._

#

Jack brings the dinner tray himself. It's been hours. She's exhausted, but the sedative has worn off and now she's too tired to sleep. One of the nurses stopped by to tell her that despite her dosimeter reading, she's going to be fine.

She's never thought about this part of coming back.

"Thought you'd like to know," he says. "We tried dialing back to Kelowna. Lost a MALP."

"Told you," she says with sulky satisfaction, sitting up and reaching for her coffee. Now that it's over and she doesn't have to _do_ anything, what she feels most is a vast and unwarranted sense of irritation. How many times is she going to have to prove herself?

"Carter thinks their Gate's still there -- buried or something. She's going to ask Jacob to ask Selmak if the _Tok'ra_ can do a flyover, but that's probably going to take a while."

Dani nods. The fact they can't send a MALP through is all the proof she needs, but she supposes the rest of them need more convincing.

"General Hammond's reading your report now. Well, I read the good bits."

"I wrote it in case I didn't get through. Sam -- Sammy -- the other Sammy -- wasn't sure how long it would be between the meltdown and the detonation. I was going to hold the Gate as long as I could." Longer. It's safe to admit that now. _I'm sorry, Daniel, I couldn't do it..._

"From the side that was going to go 'bang,'" Jack points out quietly.

She sets her jaw. _'Tell him,'_ Other Jack said. She knows what Other Jack had meant her to tell him. She knows more than two dozen languages and she can't find the words.

Jack reaches out and brushes her hair back from her forehead, leaning over the bed. "It's all right, Indy. It's all right."

#

They hold her overnight for observation, then let her go home. Forty-eight hours before General Hammond will let her come back to the Mountain, then a medical and psychological re-certification before she's put back on the line. It may be a couple of weeks before she goes through the Gate again. She's going to _enjoy_ telling MacKenzie about his double.

She gets lost finding her way back to her loft.

When she walks through the door, she feels a panicked urge to turn and run. Daniel's furniture. Daniel's artifacts. Everything he lost when he died. She feels an unsettling moment of disorientation. _No. They're mine. This is my place, my world, my home. I belong here. Here._

She feels fragile, as if she's left something important behind. She wanders through the apartment, picking things up and setting them down, feeling like an intruder. The sense of loss, of being torn from where she belongs, is raw. Her eyes sting at the unfairness of it. She wonders what Daniel is doing right now. Does he miss her?

No.

She stares into a mirror on her wall. An ordinary mirror, safe and normal. The Furling brought her to the Other Side two years into her own future, and then she spent two years, six months, and a handful of days more there. Now that she's back in her own time and place, she's four and a half years behind the Other Side. Yesterday, Daniel died in the SGC Infirmary. He Ascended to walk the Great Path. A year from now his SG-1 will find him on Vis Uban.

For years to come, she'll know exactly what Daniel is doing.

A breeze ruffles her hair, blowing it into her eyes. She brushes it back automatically. Undoubtedly she left a window open somewhere, but she left so long ago -- years, by one clock -- that she can't remember.

Her sense of --panic? --disorientation? starts to fade. Everything is all right. She goes into the kitchen to make coffee. While it's brewing, Jack phones. He's making sure she got home safely. She tells him everything's fine. It's the truth.

However, her closets are a major revelation.

When in _hell_ did she manage to buy so much ugly clothing that didn't fit? Nobody needed _four_ red turtleneck sweaters with Christmas trees on them. (She's pretty sure, actually, that nobody needed _one._ ) She goes through her closets, ruthlessly consigning to Goodwill things she's decided are ugly, or that don't fit, or that simply no longer suit her. When she's finished, more than two thirds of her wardrobe is in black plastic garbage bags on the floor. She bundles them down to the Jeep -- it takes several trips -- and drives to the mall, stopping to drop off the clothes on the way. She needs to buy makeup, anyway. Jeans. Some t-shirts that actually fit wouldn't kill her, considering that it's summer here. Sandals that actually mimic the shape of the human foot.

And earrings.

#

Sam drops by on Saturday to see Dani, bringing pizza. She can't wait for Monday's debriefing to get the details (especially the ones Dani probably won't mention there). Imagine spending more than two years in an alternate universe. She wonders what her own alternate self was like. Even more, she wonders what _Dani's_ alternate self was like. Apparently male. It's inconceivable. Considering how much Dani and the Colonel fight, the fights between Colonel O'Neill and a _male_ Indiana Jackson would have to be the stuff of legend.

Sam knocks on the door. She hears Dani call out, and a moment later she opens the door. Sam stares. Dani's wearing clothes that Sam would have bet good money she could only be forced into -- screaming and biting -- at gunpoint. A snug pale-blue racer-back tank top. Tight jeans. _Low_ tight jeans. There are earrings in her ears. Little gold stars.

"Sammy? Are you okay?" She's wearing _makeup._

"Are _you_?" Sam asks bluntly, walking in. She looks around warily, but the apartment seems normal, aside from the fact the couch is covered in shopping bags. Dani hates to shop. The entire world knows this. If it isn't sold in a catalogue, she doesn't own it. And she never buys the right size.

"Yeah, sure, fine. Oooh, you brought pizza. Coffee, beer, lemonade?"

 _Lemonade?_

"You _are_ Indiana Jackson, right?" Sam asks cautiously, softening the question with a smile.

Dani grins at her. "Wanna see my whip?"

"So what's with the...?" Sam asks over (half anchovy, half mushroom) pizza. Her gesture takes in the new clothes, the makeup, the as-yet-unemptied bags that obviously contain more new clothes.

Dani shrugs. "You kept giving me advice on clothes. Finally I took some of it."

"Me? When?" Although she has to admit she's tried. Janet's tried. Dani is as stubborn as the Colonel is, though in an entirely different way.

"Over there."

"I guess I got you to get your ears pierced, too? Looks nice."

Dani nods. "I've missed you so much, Sammy. I know you haven't missed me, because I haven't actually been gone, but I really missed all of you."

Sam reaches over and hugs her. "Well, even if you haven't been gone, it's nice to have you back."

#

Monday morning.

Dani sees SG-7 in the Commissary. Major Hightower, Lt. Sherwood, Sgt. Christopher, and a man she doesn't recognize (not civilian, so not her department, archaeologist or not). Emory glances at her, then away, without recognition.

Her office is strange to her. She was expecting that, but there's still a feeling of ... discontinuity. She knows it will fade quickly. She sits down, types in her ID code. The computer refuses it. After a moment she remembers and types in the right one.

She's Danielle Jackson, not Dana Ballard.

#

"So what was it ...like?"

The debriefing is only the first of what will be many. You can't cover two and a half years in only a few hours. It's strange to see General Hammond at the head of the table again, and not Jack.

"Kind of like here. Actually, identical to here, other than the fact that there I'm male and Sgt. Hayward didn't become Amaunet's host. There, Amaunet took Sha're."

Jack winces faintly in sympathy.

 _"Which,"_ she plows on doggedly, "set off a chain of events that led to my double coming into contact with the Ascended at a place called Kheb. Because of that, when he stopped the explosion on Kelowna and died of radiation poisoning as a result, he Ascended to a higher plane of being, came back to life after a year, and was at their SGC when the Furlings removed him and substituted me. I thought it might be a trade overture of some sort. When I consulted their mission files, I realized we wouldn't survive the Kelowna mission, but I didn't know, until I'd actually found _Daniel_ Jackson, that the reason I'd been swapped for him was that we'd already been to Kelowna and I was already dead." It's easy to talk about this now. She isn't dead. She's cheated death yet again. "Later, I realized that if -- as the Furling said -- the entire purpose of the exchange had been to open a dialogue with _us,_ it was crucial for me to get back here in time to warn you that it's absolutely vital we not accept anything from them without giving them something in exchange. So the SGC-there figured out a way to send me home. It took a while."

"This makes my brain hurt," Jack says, very softly.

"And you believe their ...past... is an accurate reflection of what's _...going..._ to happen here, Dr. Jackson?" General Hammond asks slowly.

It's been a long time. She'll have to get used to answering to her own name all over again.

"Yes sir. We can check it fairly easily. The artifacts the other SGC found -- _will_ find -- should be here in our universe, too." She makes a note to call Catherine. There's a book she needs to borrow. "And there's one other thing. Their General Hammond discovered that the quantum mirror he'd sent to their Area 51 to be destroyed hadn't been. If ours is still there, too..."

"That's something I can check right now," General Hammond says. "Dr. Jackson, you'll understand that this is all a bit much to take in all at once. But if you'll prepare a list of the artifacts you found in the alternate universe, and the addresses at which you found them, I'll take recovering them under advisement."

"Yes, General. And when the Furlings come--"

"I'll see to it that you're informed at once. Dismissed."

#

Jack wanders down to her office while she's working on the report for General Hammond. She's seeing MacKenzie that afternoon.

"So... they put you on a Gate Team while you were 'away?'"

She knows he knows they did. He's read her full report by now. He just wants to know what wasn't in it. "SG-7."

"You and Hightower..."

Daniel said Jack and Emory served together in the Gulf. Why should _Daniel_ know that about Jack and not her?

"He just had to get to know me." Emory Hightower is going to die, on Thule, two years and six months from now. "Jack?" He regards her inquiringly. "I need to know something. It's none of my business. No, I guess it is. It's something someone told me about... the other Jack. And the other Major Hightower. And I guess I need to know if it's true here."

Jack waits.

"He said the two of you -- they -- knew each other before. That you'd -- they'd -- served together in the Gulf."

Jack frowns slightly, obviously making up his mind how he's going to take this. "We did. I recommended him for the SGC."

She takes a deep breath. "Jack, he's going to die. SG-7 died -- dies -- on Thule -- PR3-799. It was Shawcross and Christopher and me and the Major -- Sherwood died earlier, on P3X-4259, in a Jaffa ambush. Only Shawcross and I made it back alive from Thule, and Shawcross was invalided out."

Jack comes into the office and closes the door behind him. "That wasn't in your report."

"I didn't have time to write everything down. It won't happen for... about two and a half years or so. I remember the exact date we went. We were stranded there for five days when the Gate System failed."

"Failed _why_?"

"Dr. Felger created a computer virus to disable Stargates. It was supposed to target a specific Gate, but Ba'al -- a _Goa'uld_ we haven't met here -- hijacked it and caused it to be passed throughout the network during a triggered correlative update. It took them ... a long time to fix it."

"Yeah, well, that ain't gonna happen." Jack sounds very sure of that, as if he may be planning to go down to 19 and just shoot Jay Felger to prevent it.

"We can stop it," she says.

"We're _going_ to stop it," Jack answers. "And look. If you happen to remember anything else _useful_ like that, Indy, don't hold back, okay?"

She smiles. "I won't, Jack."

"So..." Jack says, after a pause. "While you were over there, in ... the future ... you watch any television? Sports?"

"Um, there are going to be some major archaeological finds in the Black Sea area. And they have a conclusive cause of death for Tutankhamen."

Jack throws up his hands in disgust.

#

"Tell me about Daniel Jackson, Dr. Jackson."

She laughs out loud. "My XY counterpart, Dr. MacKenzie? Our relationship was cordial. There was no conflict. Your counterpart had this obsession that I wanted Daniel's place on their SG-1, but I didn't, and Daniel never thought I did."

"So you'd say that the two of you had a good working relationship?"

"The best."

He doesn't ask her about the full extent of her relationship with Daniel. It would take a massive leap of the imagination, after all, and MacKenzie isn't known for that. She doesn't volunteer the information.

"Tell me about the rest of the alternate SG-1..."

#

"Dani, are you sure you should be doing this?"

She looks at Sammy inquiringly. All she's doing is lifting weights, and Janet has ordered that. Almost a month now. She's finished her sessions with Dr. MacKenzie. He's has no choice but to certify her as psychologically sound. And why not? She is. She adjusted to the Other Side, made friends there, did the same job she does here, found her way home. She's satisfied Janet, too. She's clear to rejoin SG-1 and go through the Gate on their next mission.

Things have continued to play out here according to what she remembers, but debriefing her of over two years worth of events from the Other Side is a slow process.

The Furlings haven't come.

"Telling us so much about the other universe. I mean, you're changing the future -- _our_ future -- when you tell us about it. That could have serious consequences."

"Is it really our future if I change it, Sammy? I only know their future -- their past -- not ours. Maybe the whole point of everything that happened to me was for me to come back here and tell you what happened to them, so it doesn't happen to us." And anyway, their two worlds _do_ begin to diverge after Kelowna. Here, Jonas Quinn is dead. There, he joined SG-1. And there Daniel is dead -- temporarily -- while here, she -- his counterpart -- is not.

Sammy doesn't look entirely convinced.

#

Their next mission -- her first -- is to Abydos. SG-1 goes to retrieve the hidden Eye of Ra and the fragment of writing that tells about the existence of The Lost City -- although she already knows where the Ancient outpost under Antarctica is, as well as how to find Atlantis.

She tells Skaara they're going to take the Eye and destroy it on a planet far from Earth. They don't, of course. They take it back to Earth and lock it up. But General Hammond doesn't want Anubis coming to Earth looking for the sixth component of an ancient alien superweapon. Dani isn't sure the Ascended would stop him. Nobody knows that much about the Ascended. Except that they're pretty useless.

She wishes Daniel were here.

She doesn't worry about him. She knows exactly where he is -- or she will, once he reaches Vis Uban -- but more and more often, as the weeks pass and she settles in, Daniel's absence is like a painful bruise she keeps bumping, startling her with each rediscovery.

She misses talking to him. She misses everything about him. He was her closest friend. Closer, she realizes with a faint sense of indignation, than Sammy is. Or... just as close, but in a different way. Yes, that feels right. Only... one of her two best friends is in another dimension and she'll never see him again. They can't even write.

It wasn't love. It was never love. Love is what she feels for Jack O'Neill, who lights up her world just by sitting down at the same table in the Commissary. If it _had_ been love, wouldn't she have worried about his safety? When Daniel was lost with the Replicator ship, she hadn't worried.

She still hasn't been able to bring herself to have that talk with Jack.

Jack-there loves Sam-there. She was pretty sure about that by the end. But there isn't an absolute correspondence between the two universes. Jack (here) is her friend. She's certain of his friendship. When she left, she thought that was enough. It isn't. She loves him. But there's a deep gulf between friendship and love, and if she tells him she loves him...

She could not bear to see pity in his eyes. Or hear him come up with a sound military reason why she shouldn't. Or doesn't. Or can't.

#

Jack is sick with the same virus he picked up at the Antarctic base on the Other Side. She did her best to stop it, and failed. Despite the fact her information has so far been good -- the quantum mirror is in a locked lead case here in the SGC now, and (so far) the Gate Teams have found most of the artifacts she's sent them after exactly where she's said they'd be -- General Hammond can't quite bring himself to believe her information can be as accurate as she suspects it is. It seems too much like magic. (It also seems a little too good to be true.) She understands that, and doesn't push her luck. Like Cassandra -- the Classical one, not Janet's daughter -- she hasn't told anyone -- even Jack -- all she knows. She wonders if Sammy may be right, and telling them how the future will go is a bad idea.

But when the _Tok'ra_ come to take Jack to their base to implant him with Kanan -- his only hope for survival -- she insists on accompanying them. She knows that Jack/Kanan will attempt to escape from the _Tok'ra_ base to complete Kanan's unfinished mission. To rescue Shallan. She has to stop them.

But she fails again.

She's sitting at his bedside, waiting for the Blending to be complete. She's warned the _Tok'ra_ that Jack may be ... violent ... but she's not certain how much to explain. Telling them all that she knows and how she knows it would certainly be something General Hammond would not approve of.

Jack's eyes open. They flash. "Hi, Indy. How ya doin'?" His voice is his own.

She doesn't see the blow that knocks her out. When she wakes up, he and Kanan are gone. She knows exactly where he is. She knows how the Other SG-1 saved the Other Jack. It took time.

But Ascended Daniel isn't here to keep him sane. She doesn't have the luxury of that much time. She goes to the _Tok'ra_ High Council and tells them what she knows: why she thinks Jack has left the base. Where he's gone. How they can rescue him. The _Tok'ra_ aren't buying it. The don't think Kanan would do any such thing. To transmit the information about Ba'al's base to Lord Yu would be a risk to them. A slight one, but the _Tok'ra_ do not take risks. They cannot replace their dead.

They cannot replace their dead...

"I know where Egeria is," she says suddenly. "She's alive."

Sammy will kill her. General Hammond will kill her. It's Jack's only chance.

"And this supposed information is the price of our help?" High Councilor Per'sus demands.

She wishes she could do that. Blackmail them. She closes her eyes. "No. She's on a world called Pangar. I'll give you the Gate address, everything I know about where she's being held. You'll have to take her by force. She's very ill. But there may still be a chance to save her."

"And when were the _Tau'ri_ going to tell us this?" another member of the High Council demands angrily.

"The _Tau'ri_ don't know," she says. "I'm the only one who knows. My information is ... very recent." In a manner of speaking.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, kid?" Selmak asks. No, it's Jacob Carter who's speaking.

She shrugs. "Changing the future."

She tells them more while they prepare a mission to Pangara. She knows that if her information isn't good, she's doomed Jack: the _Tok'ra_ will never let the SGC have access to Kanan's mission files so _they_ can transmit the information to Lord Yu. Every hour, every minute, is another that he's in Ba'al's hands. Being tortured.

"So you visited the future?" Jacob/Selmak asks her.

"In a manner of speaking. It was an alternate-universe future, but it seems to match ours pretty closely." She's drawn them a map of the city, of the laboratory complex. It's what she remembers from the mission files: it was one of Jonas Quinn's missions on The Other Side.

"My kid okay there?"

"She made Colonel." Makes Colonel. When Jack makes General.

"Hey, that's great." Jacob Carter is as delighted as if it has already happened here. "You, ah, _were_ going to tell us about this anyway, right?"

Sammy doesn't want her changing the future. But it's only a few months difference. The Other-SG-1 called in the _Tok'ra_ as soon as they realized they'd found Egeria.

"Yes, General Carter. Selmak. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but... I haven't been back for very long, and--" She hesitates. "I'm worried sometimes they'll think I'm crazy, you know? If what I remember from there doesn't match things here--"

Jacob -- or Selmak -- if it's a good Blending, and goes on long enough, it can be hard to tell -- pats her on the shoulder. "Pull this one off and we'll back you to the hilt, kiddo."

"When General Hammond finds out about this, I'll need it."

#

The _Tok'ra_ bring Egeria through. She's alive, but very weak. Still, the _Tok'ra_ think she has a good chance to recover. They send the information about Ba'al's secret fortress to Lord Yu. In fact, they do even more than Dani could have hoped for. The _Tok'ra_ Gate to Ba'al's complex under cover of Lord Yu's attack, using their GDO and IDC to take Jack directly back to the SGC.

The first she knows of it is when General Hammond dials in.

"Dr. Jackson, Colonel O'Neill has just shown up here with a woman named Shallan and several _Tok'ra_. Would you happen to know anything about that?" From the General's voice, he suspects she does know. A lot.

"Uh, yes, General. Is... How is he?"

"Dr. Fraiser says he's going to be fine. We're sending the _Tok'ra_ party through now. And then I'd like you to come back and explain a few things to me."

"Yes, General."

A few minutes later, Shallan and the _Tok'ra_ walk through the Gate. The woman looks sandbagged.

"Kanan told me I would find friends here," she says simply. "I wish to fight the _Goa'uld_ in his name."

By now Dani's explained everything to the _Tok'ra_ High Council about why Jack/Kanan went -- back -- to Ba'al's fortress all over again. This time she's been believed. The _Tok'ra_ welcome the woman eagerly. Dani dials the Gate again, transmits her IDC.

"Knock 'em dead, kid," Jacob tells her.

"Right now I'm just hoping they don't do that for me," she answers.

#

"Dr. Jackson, can you explain to me why we sent Colonel O'Neill to a _Tok'ra_ base and got him _back_ from a _Goa'uld_ fortress?" General Hammond asks.

She's sitting at the briefing table with Sammy, Teal'c, and the General. She'd rather be in the Infirmary, but she has to do this first. Sammy's already been down to see Jack. He's been tortured, but the Ancient virus is gone and the worst they actually have to deal with is the fact that he's been in-and-out of a sarcophagus several times. Recovery from that will be ... rough.

"Ah... he went there to complete one of Kanan's unfinished missions," she says.

"Which you knew he would do before the two of you left," General Hammond says. He isn't happy with her.

"I knew he would try to, sir. I was hoping to prevent it."

"Which you obviously did not."

"No, sir."

"Dr. Jackson, will you do me the courtesy of telling me what you are so obviously _not_ telling me before I have you locked up until you come to your senses?"

She closes her eyes. Offers up a silent prayer to Thoth, god of Truth. They've never met a _Goa'uld_ who'd taken on the _persona_ of Thoth. The _Goa'uld_ aren't much for truth.

"Several months ago, Kanan had a mission to infiltrate the research fortress of a _Goa'uld_ named Ba'al -- the one he uses for secret experiments into anti-gravity. Kanan gained access to Ba'al's private chambers by suborning Ba'al's personal _lo'tar,_ a woman named Shallan. When his mission was finished, Kanan abandoned her there. When Kanan Blended with Jack, he realized that we don't leave our people behind, and took Jack back to rescue Shallan. I thought I'd be able to reason with them, explain. It didn't work." She rubs the back of her neck. She still has a headache from where Jack hit her.

"So Colonel O'Neill went to Ba'al's fortress. Obviously, then, the _Tok'ra_ got him out."

She'd really like to leave it at that. But if she's caught in the lie, she'll be in even worse trouble. "No, sir. Ba'al's fortress was impregnable. But in the Other Universe, the SGC helped him escape from the same situation by transmitting Kanan's mission files of that operation to Lord Yu. Yu mounted an attack on the base, targeting the power generators, and in the confusion, Jack was able to free himself."

The General considers this for a moment. "And you convinced the _Tok'ra_ to do the same thing here. Good work, Dr. Jackson. I only have one question. How did you manage to get them to act?"

"General, I know how valuable--"

"Dr. Jackson."

She looks at Sammy and Teal'c. No help there. "I knew where their Queen was, General. Egeria. She was still alive. I told them how to find her."

She hears Sammy takes a deep breath.

"We would have gone to Pangara in a few months anyway," Dani says, her words tumbling over each other with the urgent need to explain her actions. "We would have told the _Tok'ra_ about Egeria as soon as we found her. This way she has a chance to survive. If she lives, _Tok'ra_ numbers will increase again. They'll be able to fight the _Goa'uld_ more effectively."

"Dr. Jackson, that is beside the point--"

She doesn't let him finish. "On Pangara, the Pangarans were synthesizing a drug called _tretonin_ from the symbiotes they extracted from Egeria. On the Other Side, the _Tok'ra_ develop a synthetic version of it that allows the Jaffa independence from _Goa'uld_ symbiotes. The _Tok'ra_ have promised to try to duplicate that research here. They need to anyway, to attempt to help the Pangarans. Much of the Pangaran population is already heavily-dependent on _tretonin,_ even though it doesn't work very well in humans." She's about to go on, but General Hammond forestalls her.

"Dr. Jackson, you do not set policy for this command!" He's furious with her, and Sammy doesn't look any too pleased either.

"No, sir."

"I am _this_ close to removing you from SG-1 and assigning you to a permanent desk job."

"Yes, sir."

"The only possible mitigating circumstances are the safe return of Colonel O'Neill, and the fact that, however they received the information, whatever happened on Pangara is between the _Tok'ra_ and the Pangarans, and does not reflect on the SGC or Earth."

"Yes, sir."

"But in the future, when you are tempted to utilize your special knowledge of possible future events without consulting me, kindly remember that my patience in these matters is _extremely_ limited."

"Yes, sir."

"And I am still reserving the option to consider further disciplinary action."

"Yes, sir." The things he can do to her -- short of removing her from SG-1 or assigning her to Cataloging and Translation for a few weeks -- well, _forever_ \-- are limited.

And Jack is alive.

"Dismissed."

#

"Dani..." Sammy catches up to her as she's heading for the Infirmary. She looks at Sammy. Sammy just shakes her head and sighs.

"Sammy. He'd be dead now. I had to give them something. I don't see why it was wrong to save Egeria's life. The _Tok'ra_ are our allies."

"You know things you're not supposed to know. You're changing the future."

"It isn't our future," she says stubbornly. "That hasn't happened yet. They got Jack back in The Other Reality, but it wouldn't have worked the same way here. I had to make it come out right."

"You don't know what 'right' is."

"'Right' is Jack still being alive. For crying out loud, Sammy. It's _Jack._ "

Sammy gives up. "Yeah, I know. I guess... I might have done the same thing."

They go into the Infirmary.

#

When he wakes up, she's standing at the foot of his bed -- arms wrapped tightly around herself, chin down, staring at him through that mop of hair. Carter told him Dani 'might' be in trouble. She wouldn't tell him why. He might be able to get it out of General Hammond before the pain gets too bad. He feels okay right now, but he and Fraiser both know that will change. Too much sarcophagus. They've all had a demonstration of what that's like. After they got back from beautiful P3R-636 and found about the sarc the hard way, Indiana spent days in Isolation screaming like she was being burned alive. After a point there wasn't much Fraiser could do for her, or else she'd just have been replacing one addiction with another one.

He isn't looking forward to the next week, or however long it's going to take. It was only a couple of days, but he's not really sure how many times he died. The upside is, right now he doesn't feel very much as if he's been tortured to death more times than he really wants to remember.

"So," he says. "You gonna tell me why putting a snake in my head means I go visit the _Goa'uld_?" And that's the last time he ever lets her or Carter talk him into doing _that._

She walks up to the head of the bed and sits down on a chair. "It's a long story."

"I think I've got a few minutes."

#

After that visit, Jack has Janet bar her from the Infirmary. It's ten days before the effects of the sarcophagus work their way out of his system. She has to find out how he's doing, day-by-day, from Teal'c. She wonders if he knows what she did to get him back -- something she left out of her explanation -- and is punishing her. It can't be that he thinks she doesn't know what sarcophagus addiction is like.

And he stayed with her.

Meanwhile, General Hammond has thought of a way to make the full scope of his displeasure known. For the entire next month she spends all of every day getting thoroughly debriefed -- by an expert interrogation team -- on every single event of her time on the Other Side. By the time they're done with her, they have every detail of her life at the Other SGC -- and outside it -- on tape and film.

Almost.

Unlike MacKenzie, they stick to facts, not feelings. She's able to leave Daniel out of it. Not the fact that she knew him and liked her quantum double. Not that they were close friends and coworkers.

Just that they were lovers.

 _"And what about your social relationships outside the SGC, Dr. Jackson?"_

 _"I didn't have any relationships outside the SGC, Major Tarrant. I felt it would be too dangerous."_

She isn't tempted to overstep the bounds again. But as the weeks turn to months, the information she's brought back from the Other Side starts to pay off in a way that returns her to General Hammond's good graces. They thwart the hijacking of the X-303 before it happens and (finally) take Adrian Conrad into custody. That it _would_ have happened is a point to her on the invisible, nonexistent tallyboard she's taken to keeping.

Though Conrad never got a chance -- here -- to kidnap Sammy and use her for his science project, he still got the black-market _Goa'uld_ implanted in him and vanished in the NID raid on his secret lab. She wasn't able to remember -- and warn General Hammond -- in time to stop Conrad getting implanted. Those events are something that happened in the gap between Kelowna and her arrival in The Other Reality, and she doesn't have as many details about what happened to their counterparts during that time -- especially if it wasn't an official mission through the Gate. But they have Conrad now. And they won't need to try to cut a deal with him when -- if -- Teal'c is trapped in the Gate's buffer. The details of how to get him out -- which Other Conrad provided to the Other SGC -- are carefully recorded on one of the CDs she brought.

So much to try to remember. Impossible to write it all down. She was debriefed just in time, unpleasant as it was. That transcript's been sealed at some level stratospherically above Top Secret. Not even Jack knows all that's in it.

But there are some things she has no trouble remembering.

Thor still comes (right on schedule), asking for their help to defeat the Replicators on Halla by enveloping the planet in a stasis bubble.

"Dr. Jackson?" General Hammond is looking at her across the conference table. "I'd like your opinion."

It's a difficult choice for General Hammond to make. She knows that. Let them go, and he may be setting in motion the chain of events that leads to the creation of Evil Robot Sam. Refuse, and they alienate -- and possibly doom -- their strongest allies. But if things work out even the same and not better, the mission will buy them at least two years, time for the Asgard to complete work on the disruptor technology they create with the help of the second Ancient database the SGC's already recovered. If she can brief SG-1 properly, maybe the events that lead to the creation of Evil Robot Sam won't happen at all. Even if Evil Robot Sam _is_ created, they won't fall for her ploy (almost five years from now) and allow her to make herself immune to the Asgard weapon.

The one the Asgard haven't invented yet.

"I think we should go, sir. All of us."

"Very well. You may brief SG-1 on the way. Use maximum discretion. And you are _not_ to accompany Colonel O'Neill and the others to the surface of Halla. Is that perfectly clear?"

She nods reluctantly. She thinks the advance information she can provide might save them from being captured by the humanoid Replicators at all. But if it doesn't, General Hammond's right. They don't dare allow the creatures access to the contents of her mind.

"Ah... something I should know, sir?" Jack asks.

General Hammond regards her meaningfully. "Dr. Jackson will give you the appropriate details."

#

On the way to Halla in the X-303 -- they're being towed by an Asgard mothership, or else they'd never get there -- she tells them what will -- could -- _might_ \-- happen when they reach Halla. She doesn't tell them too much, in case the humanoid Replicators _do_ get into their minds. She's said nothing about Fifth. She's learning.

"And this is a _good_ thing?" Jack asks.

"Well, 'good' in the sense that it's not as bad as it could be," she says. "You might even be able to keep it from happening at all. The alternative, of course, is to let the Replicators wipe out the Asgard, after which they'd turn on us anyway." She tries to say this as if she doesn't know for a fact that the Replicators _will_ attack Earth -- and the _Goa'uld_ \-- in a little over four years, unless they're stopped here.

"And you know how all this comes out?" Jack asks suspiciously.

"Sir," Sammy says worriedly. "Even if she _does_ know, she can't tell us. She's already told us too much as it is."

She hopes she's told them enough to save them. Jonas Quinn was with the Other SG-1 on that mission. She hopes his absence -- or hers -- won't make a fatal difference.

#

The other three are down on the surface of Halla almost forty hours. She waits aboard the Asgard ship. She thinks Thor knows what she's done; knows she has access to information it's impossible for her to have. But she doesn't dare ask. Telling the Tok'ra was bad -- and she never let them know how far her alternate-universe knowledge extended -- but telling the Asgard would be worse. She doesn't dare let Thor "fix" things by removing the knowledge she's come to depend on.

When she finally rings back aboard _Prometheus,_ everyone is too quiet. There's tension between Sammy and Jack. It's a long trip home. They don't tell her what happened, but she knows anyway.

They failed.

The future is still coming.

#

They don't fall for Maybourne's story about a weapons cache that only he can retrieve. She takes pity on him and explains all the reasons why the place he was trying to go wasn't a paradise -- she tells him the information came from the _Tok'ra_ , something he'll never be able to check -- but she doesn't think Harry buys it.

They side-step other NID attacks on the SGC. Clear Jack's name in the 'assassination plot' against Kinsey almost before he's arrested. Agent Barrett wonders at their sources of information, but so far General Hammond has been able to protect her. She realizes she should have considered the consequences more carefully before saying anything at all about knowing the future. But she couldn't sit back, knowing what she knew, and let her friends walk into danger. Let Jack walk into danger. Let him die.

They never bring the "bug zapper" back through the Gate.

She's been home eight months. She's changing the future, but it doesn't seem like it. These aren't events she remembers. They're things she read about in reports, and the memories are fading, overlaid by real life. Of all the events on The Other Side, only the big disasters, the big finds -- and the things that happened to her personally -- stick in her mind. That's normal, but sometimes it isn't very useful.

She's trying to get General Hammond to let her and Sammy study the quantum mirror. By now her track record with 'predicting the future' has given her a certain amount of pull -- more than Daniel ever had on The Other Side, to be perfectly honest. Studying the mirror will be far from safe, but what it shows them about other realities might help them outguess Anubis.

Anubis is playing chess.

With her.

Recently he's changed several of his plans at whim -- or given Ba'al orders to change his, which amounts to the same thing -- contradicting her memories. She knows Anubis knows she can 'see the future' -- he tricked Oma Desala into Ascending him, and unlike it was with Daniel, it wasn't completely reversible when they found out it'd been a bad idea. So Anubis still has access to most of the Ascended knowledge -- he's just not supposed to use it. She has the advantage there: she can use what she knows. The constraints of the Ascended don't apply to her because of how she learned what she knows -- Anubis may know the same things, but if he uses the knowledge, the Ascended will intervene. He won't risk that.

Dani hopes it frustrates him intolerably. Maybe he'll make a mistake. Maybe the Ascended will destroy him.

She's hoping for that. On the Other Side, Anubis weakened the _Goa'uld_ until the Replicators attacked them. He waited until his two most powerful enemies were engaged with each other before attempting to seize the Ancient device at Dakara and to wipe out all life in the universe. At least, he'd intended to do that -- so Ba'al told the Other SGC -- but he was stopped. Or at least he stopped. (No one knew why; Dani has a theory.) She can't assume they'll receive the same grace. And they'll still have the Replicators to deal with. After Halla, it's almost certain.

She knows Anubis is waiting until her alternate universe memories can no longer predict reality and block his plans. He's always seen the _Tau'ri_ as the greatest threat to _Goa'uld_ dominion, and he still does: but he also means to be the only _Goa'uld_. The only _god._ If both realities run true, he's going to launch his final attack in a little under four years. They need to figure out how to stop him.

She finally convinces General Hammond to give them research access to the mirror (it was easier to negotiate a treaty with the System Lords). The first thing they discover is that you _don't_ need a destination mirror.

The mirror's locked inside a large Plexiglas case, so that nobody can accidentally touch it. The entire Special Materials Lab is curtained in black, so anyone looking through from somewhere else will see nothing they can identify. She and Sammy are standing behind it, viewing its images through a conventional mirror set up to reflect its surface, as if they were gazing on the head of Medusa. That way nobody will be able to see them, either.

There are two armored SFs with heavy machine guns standing at the back wall. There are two more outside the door. Dani wonders what they've been told. This can't look as if it's dangerous.

When Sammy finally turns the controller on, their mirror fills with the images reflected by other mirrors. Many of them still seem to be on P3R-233. Some are in _Goa'uld_ throne rooms. Some are in deserted -- and destroyed -- SGCs.

But there are actually only very few visible universes. She remembers what happened when Kawalsky and the Other Janet ( _another_ Other Janet, though she never met the one in Daniel's universe) came through the quantum mirror. Janet had said that General Carter -- Sam was head of the SGC in Other-Janet's reality -- had found this destination for them before she was killed, and that it was one of the few close variations that hadn't been overrun by the _Goa'uld_. In Daniel's universe, Kawalsky and a civilian Sammy came through, but the message was the same. The _Goa'uld_ had destroyed every variation of Earth where she (Daniel or Danielle), Jack, Sam, and Teal'c didn't comprise SG-1.

As Sammy sweeps from universe to universe, there are flickers of darkness between the images. They know that doesn't mean the destination mirror is switched off, because any mirror can activate any other. At first Dani thought that when they saw darkness, it meant that the mirror on the other side was locked up. Now she doesn't think it means that at all, but she's not quite sure what it _does_ mean.

Something bad.

 _P3R-233 -- SGC -- SGC -- Goa'uld throneroom -- P3R-233 -- 233 -- 233 -- Goa'uld throneroom--_

 _Sammy gets to the end of the controller's dial. "Not very helpful," she says, switching it off._

 _Dani takes the control device. "The big red button turns it on and off. The slider lets you shift across universes. Sammy, what does the little switch on the side do?" Was there a switch on the control device in The Other Reality? Other Sam never let her touch it._

 _"Dani, what are you--"_

 _Dani pushes the switch up and the mirror activates again. This time it shows them the Special Materials Lab, something it hasn't showed yet. There are no shrouding draperies. They can see the door clearly. Every image Dani cautiously evokes -- a narrow range of realities -- is of the Special Materials Lab._

 _Sammy grabs the controller and shuts it off. "Don't _do_ that!"_

"Um... sorry?"

They test it cautiously. Sammy comes up with the theory that the switch unhooks the mirror somehow from the network of other quantum mirrors, causing it to more closely mimic an actual mirror and reflect other universes in only its own location. You can see any possible universe. You can even (Sammy theorizes, because they certainly aren't going to test it) go through -- to the exact place the mirror is in your world. But if you hope to get back, there has to be another quantum mirror somewhere in that universe.

In some universes, Dani knows, there's no quantum mirror at all.

But now they can see far more alternates than before, and in many of them, spy on the inhabitants completely undetected, as there's no destination mirror to give them away. Of course, they can only see what's in the Special Materials Lab of the SGC -- or what would _be_ the Special Materials Lab. Some are missile silos (no Stargate at all? Or was it just not discovered?) but in a lot of them, the SGC is there, and the door to the hallway is open. They'd like to move the mirror closer to the door to get a better view, but the SFs won't let them.

Not that day.

Work still goes on (now more than ever), but Dani spends more and more of her free time in the Special Materials Lab, gazing into the quantum mirror. She tells herself she's looking for signs of Ba'al, since Anubis is still in hiding. As far as the _Tok'ra_ can tell them -- and they've been a lot more cooperative since she found Egeria for them, another thing that's sweetened General Hammond's temper -- Ba'al, too, has now vanished. She suspects he's secretly making war on the System Lords and their underlings in order to make Anubis Supreme System Lord, something nobody in the Galaxy wants.

What she sees in the mirror is that what Alternate-Other-Sam-there and Alternate-Janet-here said is true. Almost every variation of Cheyenne Mountain she can see -- and even, it turns out, some of the missile silos -- is overrun with Jaffa.

And in some, even the Mountain isn't there any more.

She's looking at a view that -- logically -- must be of Earth, but what should be the Special Materials Lab in Cheyenne Mountain is above ground, in a landscape as flat and lifeless as a desert. Bright unwinking stars -- indicating there's no atmosphere -- shine in the sky above a wrongly flat horizon, and the pattern of craters on the face of the rising moon is wholly unfamiliar.

She dials past that one quickly.

 _Mirror, mirror, on the wall..._

Why do her world and Daniel's seem to be the only ones that survive untouched? What are the requirements for a stable universe? Why do the _Goa'uld_ win in so many she's seen? Why didn't Anubis press his attack on either Earth or Dakara after the Replicators were destroyed? The Asgard couldn't have stopped him, and he was the only major _Goa'uld_ power left in the Galaxy. All they ever knew for sure on the Other Side was that he stopped. And vanished. And the Kull Warriors under his direct mental control suddenly ... weren't.

Why did the Furlings stage this whole elaborate scenario, and then never finish it? It's been almost a year. Why haven't they come back to talk? Is the _harceisis_ the key? _(Daniel's wife had a son. Dani has never had a husband.)_ Daniel found the _harceisis_ child on Kheb. Sha're's son. _(And Amaunet and Apophis's.)_ But Dani killed her sister on Abydos nearly ten years ago. There's no _harceisis_ here.

She still wants to go to Kheb.

It's a low-priority mission -- compared to the giant Easter Egg Hunt the SGC is still conducting, nine months after her return -- but she needs to go. Daniel went to Kheb and she never did. As a result, when the Replicator Fleet comes to Earth, she's going to die.

They're _all_ going to die.

Other-Sam thought that Daniel (while he was Ascended for the second time) was able to hold off the minions of her Evil Robot Twin long enough that she and Selmak could get the Ancient machine on Dakara working. The weapon there can destroy the Replicators. But if they destroy it (here) first -- and don't fall for Evil Robot Sam's trick giving her access to their computers -- then they checkmate Anubis' plans to use the machine, because there won't be any Replicators to destroy the surviving _Goa'uld_ leaving him to rule unchecked. With the Asgard Disruptor Device, they still have a way to destroy the Replicators. They'll still have Anubis and his fleet to deal with. But they know how to do that now. She hopes.

Destroying the Ancient machine at Dakara is crucial to defeating either threat. General Hammond is working out plans to take Dakara now, but it's a huge undertaking. Dakara is a major _Goa'uld_ world, deep in Ba'al's domain, and they have neither the troops nor the resources to mount a ground assault. They can't just bomb it from orbit, either -- it's the Jaffa holy city, and the Free Jaffa would break their treaty with Earth. (And probably attack Earth into the bargain.) It was barely possible for the Free Jaffa fleet on the Other Side to take Dakara while most of the _Goa'uld_ were off fighting the Replicators, and that after the Free Jaffa had had several more years to amass ships and train recruits. Now, as a solely-SGC mission, it looks almost impossible. But they have to do it somehow. Because the Replicators are coming. And Anubis is out there.

Somewhere.

SG-1 goes to Kheb a month later.

#

Kheb, like so many other places they've gone through the Gate, is an untouched wilderness. The Gate is nestled in a valley of primal hardwood forest. There are spectacular mountains in the distance. There should be a temple here, several kliks from the Gate. The Ascended watch it, or maybe just Oma Desala. She -- or they -- interact with those who come here. Anubis came to Kheb to gain Ascension. Maybe -- Dani hopes -- her answers are there.

She doesn't find the temple. SG-1 searches for almost eight hours before Jack makes her give up and takes them home.

She's not sure what she expected to find on Kheb -- at least once she'd found the temple, anyway, considering that she has absolutely no interest in Ascending -- but her sense of loss, failure, and disaster borders on panic. Jack knows how she feels, of course, but he doesn't understand. She knows he thinks it's delayed aftershock from her ... 'exile', nothing more.

She manages to conceal the extent of her devastation from Sammy and Mr. T.

#

It's almost a year after she's gotten home -- close to the day on the Other Side when the Other SG-1 will discover Daniel on Vis Uban -- that the NID puts together twelve and twelve and comes up fish.

The National Intelligence Department has never been her favorite people. They're one of the many overlapping Alphabet Agencies in Washington, and one of their mandates is the oversight of the so-called 'intelligence' aspects of the Stargate Program. If there's any intelligence at all in the NID, in any sense of the word, she'll eat a selection of her best reference books.

She's even less fond of them after they kidnap her.

#

The team has four-day leave. Jack's going up to the cabin. He's got a friend with a light plane who flies him in and out. She's made up her mind to follow him. They'll have it out. There, far from military rules and regulations. Settle things. If it goes ... bad ... she can leave the team. That will be best.

Not the SGC, of course. But she could go back to being a floating expert among the various teams. With all the work coming in, it wouldn't cause too much talk. She's already needed in more places than she can possibly be right now. On the Other Side, Anubis is about to gain valuable information about _naquaadriah_ technology on Kelowna. He can't do that here. There's not much of Kelowna left. The _Tok'ra_ did a flyover of the planet as a personal favor to her. The devastation is far worse than anything Other Sammy ever imagined.

The initial explosion had, as she'd assumed, taken out the city, gaining force by feeding on trace _naquaadah_ from the mines beneath the city. But there were deep veins of _naquaadah_ outside the initial blast radius. They weren't far enough away, however, to keep from being irradiated by the initial blast. Irradiated _naquaadah_ turns into _naquaadriah_. _Naquaadriah_ is ... unstable. The secondary explosions began a few months later. By then, half the inhabitants of the planet were already dead of radiation poisoning, and -- Dani suspects -- the rest of them were at war, because the Terranans and the Andari Federation would certainly have invaded Kelowna the moment they heard of the explosion, and turned on each other the moment Kelowna was destroyed. But by the time of the _Tok'ra_ flyover, the entire atmosphere was radioactive, and everyone on Kelowna was dead. Soon the planet itself will explode.

It haunts her. But what could they have done to save them? Kelowna's Stargate was destroyed in the blast that leveled Kelowna City. The SGC doesn't have a spacefleet that can evacuate a planet. She knows the Kelownan planetary _naquaadah_ became unstable in the Other Reality, and that Sam and Jonas did something to stop the explosion, but she doesn't remember what and it isn't one of the pieces of information she brought. She couldn't bring everything.

Could she have saved the survivors on Kelowna? Could Sammy?

Their universe is diverging rapidly from the one in which she knows the future. And so she's decided to go and have that little talk with Jack. Just in case later might be too late.

She isn't telling him she's coming. She wants to keep her backing-out options open until the last minute. She'll -- oh, it sounds stupid, but she's decided. She'll tell him what she feels for him. She'll tell him she'll wait for him if he wants her to. If he wants her. It's just four years; she's had books it's taken her longer to read. Four years and then they aren't on the same SG Team. Of course, then he makes General, but she's only a civilian consultant. It shouldn't matter.

Well, assuming she's still alive. He's still alive.

 _They're_ still alive.

#

They take her in the airport parking lot.

She's walking toward the terminal, her bag over her shoulder, not thinking of much but the upcoming confrontation with Jack. She doesn't pay any attention to the van as she approaches it, thinking it's an airport shuttle. Men jump out of the back and grab her.

She reacts explosively, as she's been taught. _"Don't wait for the situation to get bad enough to justify maximum force. When you're attacked, hit back with everything right then."_ Obviously not what Mr. T would do, or need to do. But Teal'c is a large formidable Jaffa warrior, fierce and intimidating. She's half his size and couldn't intimidate anyone if her life depended on it.

Not only can she not intimidate these people, she can't escape them.

#

She comes to with a pounding chemical headache in a Plexiglas cage reminiscent of Hannibal Lector's cell. Like the one SG-1 found the _Goa'uld_ /human hybrid in out in Los Angeles. (Like the one they keep the quantum mirror in.) Nobody's going to miss her until she doesn't come in next Wednesday. Her captors have a more than sixty hour head start. She wonders how long she's been unconscious.

She's stripped to her underwear, but what really annoys her is that they've taken her glasses. Everything is blurry.

The room outside the cell has black walls and gives her the impression of great size -- maybe a hangar? It's filled with banks of lights that blind her to everything behind them when -- a few minutes after she wakes up -- they're turned on.

Voices come from behind the lights, asking questions.

At first the questions make no sense. How does she know what some name she doesn't even recognize will be doing on a specific date later this year? She doesn't even know who's captured her, or why.

The questions go on. More in the same vein. Sometimes they ask about places. The dates vary: later this week, later this year, one year from now, two...

She tells the voice 'she doesn't know' in a dozen languages. All the living ones she can remember, including Hebrew, which came back from the dead.

 _(Like Daniel.)_

After a while she gets tired of answering. Her mind drifts. The invisible speaker's English is faultlessly idiomatic. He is, she judges, a native speaker without any additional languages who learned his English somewhere in southern Ohio.

Jack's mother was from Minnesota, of naturalized Norwegian stock, his father Chicago Irish. His mother died when he was young, and his father took him to live with paternal relatives on the South Side of Chicago. Jack's maternal grandfather -- who left Jack the cabin in Minnesota, where she wishes she was now -- would take charge of his grandson on vacations. This is why Jack's idiolect slides between the broad vowels of Upper Minnesota and the sing-song Irish lilt of Dublin in exile.

Sammy learned English in Northern California, and her idiolect still retains traces of the distinctive forward-palate Central California rhythm, like a car bumping rhythmically over roadway. But she's an Air Force brat; her speech patterns are overlaid with impressions and borrowings from all across the country -- and now, since Jolinar, with an inflection Dani's heard in _Tok'ra_ voices.

The _Goa'uld_ symbiotes Janet's studied (Janet's from Louisiana) only have the capability to emit squeals and whistles; no true vocal apparatus. Speech, and the knowledge of it, is something both _Goa'uld_ and _Tok'ra_ borrow from their hosts, despite which they impose their own vocal patterns and consistent linguistic stressors upon human speech.

Teal'c's English is formal, unidiomatically precise--

"Dr. Jackson? We know you can hear us."

 _Editor, tapeworm, or Goa'uld?_ she thinks. "Unfortunately, yes."

"We want to know all you can tell us about the _Goa'uld's_ future plans."

"Who are you? CIA? NID?" They might be Russian. Half the nations on Earth know about the Stargate Program -- and thus about the _Goa'uld_.

"You'll find it much easier to cooperate, Dr. Jackson."

 _Than what?_ "Uh, excuse me? I've been threatened by experts." _Tortured by experts, too._ She won't think that far ahead.

The questions resume. Apparently they have a long list and are asking them in order. Somewhere around the fiftieth or maybe the seventieth question it occurs to her that from the type of questions they're asking, that they think she can predict the future. Not because she went to an alternate universe, read a bunch of files, and lived through the events in real time, but because she's got some kind of alien magic wand.

Or a time machine.

She thinks of explaining their error to them, and decides it would be an extremely bad idea. If they don't know about the timeship, she isn't going to be the one to tell them. If they _do_ know, why are they bothering with her?

Of course, the timeship is buried under The Mountain at this point. She was probably considerably easier to get at.

She wonders if they got their hands on a copy of her debriefing. No secret is safe if someone else knows it. But if they _did_ have that, wouldn't their questions be different? And they'd already know everything she knows.

#

They've got a Jaffa painstick. That's one of the things that convinces her they must be NID. The NID has the most access to _Goa'uld_ technology.

Two of them enter her cell and wrestle her to her knees. They're human, wearing dark suits. A third one -- she can't see him; it might be Southern Ohio -- jams the device against her back. The pain is incredible.

They don't even ask her any questions.

Eventually she passes out.

Daniel appears to her in her dreams. He's wearing Abydan clothing. Desert robes. They're on Abydos. Maybe she should just go back to Abydos. Life wasn't as complicated there.

 _"Am I dead?"_ she asks, confused.

 _"Well, no, actually, I am,"_ Daniel says gently.

 _"It's only temporary,"_ she tells him reassuringly. She thinks he might worry. The 'when' of Danielness is a fascinating puzzle, but she isn't going to let it divert her.

 _"Yes, I know. It's happened before, it will happen again. I'm okay with that, actually."_

Death and resurrection. The Phoenix, the royal firebird reverenced by a hundred cultures.

 _"The Ancient Phoenicians interacted with the Ascended,"_ she says with sudden certainty. Daniel smiles, saying nothing.

 _"Daniel, am I going to die?"_ Suddenly it's important to know. She's left so much undone.

 _"They're going to use drugs next. They'll keep this up until you tell them everything you know."_

 _'Everybody breaks.'_ Jack told her that. Especially with drugs. The trick is to hold out as long as you can. The SGC will search for her. But only once they know she's missing. The team had four day leave.

She knows what her captors want. They've already asked her the questions once. When they find out she doesn't know anything about those things, they'll kill her. They can't afford to let her go now.

 _"Or else?"_

 _"You can Ascend,"_ Daniel tells her.

 _"You mean die , Daniel. I'm not you. I'm not good enough. I've been to Kheb. There was nothing there. And ... you don't like Ascension anyway. You've come back twice. I mean, you will. What is it with you, a detour around death?"_

 _"It is now,"_ Daniel says, an odd note in his voice. _"Dani, let me help you. We're not that different. You can do this. Please."_

She knows she's dreaming now, because this is the same conversation Daniel had with Jack-there when Jack was a prisoner of Ba'al. It was never in the reports, and Daniel doesn't remember, but he was told. _'Apparently I offered Jack the chance to Ascend once,'_ he told her.

Her captors wake her up dragging her out of her cell.

Two days later she's found wandering in Arapaho National Recreation Area, naked and confused. After she's taken to a local hospital, it takes her forty-eight hours to remember her name and tell them what it is. She remembers she's a consultant on the Deep Space Telemetry Project at Cheyenne Mountain, and tells them that too. There's been an APB out on her for four days.

She talks to Jack on the phone. Their conversation is guarded. It's an open line.

"So... Indiana. I hear you went for a walk without your clothes."

She closes her eyes. She can feel herself blushing. _Not going to live that down any time soon._ "I guess so."

"See any snakes?"

"Not that I know of. Can I come home now, Auntie Em?"

"I'll be there in a couple of hours. I'll bring ...clothes."

 _Nope, no time soon._

#

She sits up in the hospital bed. She can hear Jack's voice all the way down in the hall. Not arguing. Laying down the law, probably to the Sheriff. The Gospel According to Colonel Jack O'Neill, delivered from On High. She's seen a lot of the local Sheriff since she woke up here. He was sure she'd been drugged up on something, but apparently her blood work came back clean because he hasn't tried to arrest her. Now all of that documentation is going to vanish, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force.

Local authorities hate that.

Jack pushes open the door to her room. He's in full Dress Uniform (an intimidating sight) and carrying a large paper bag. The Sheriff is right behind him. She sees Jack's face soften with relief at the sight of her. She feels fine, really, all things considered. Just a little jumbled in the head still, though she knows she was kidnapped.

"Hi, Jack," she says.

"Is this your missing scientist, Colonel?"

"That's her," Jack says, not looking away. "How you doing, Indy?"

"I'm good. Fine. Can we go home?"

Jack asks the Sheriff to wait outside. When the door closes, he strides over to the bed, drops the bag on the foot, and pushes her head down to her knees. Before she's quite sure of what he's doing, his hands are on the back of her neck, untying the hospital shift, pushing her hair aside.

Oh. "No scar?" she asks, her voice a little muffled by the position. The nurses here hadn't mentioned one, but they might not have thought to. And if she'd been infested, she might not have thought to look for herself. Or might not have remembered seeing one. A _Goa'uld_ can hide itself from its host.

"No." His voice is a little ragged with relief.

He lets her up. She clutches the gown into place. It's not an absolute bill of health -- Janet will have to give her that -- but it's a good indication. _Goa'uld_ prefer to enter through the back of the neck. If she'd been infested, the people who had taken her would have held her until the parasite took control. Then they would have had everything she knew. Then they might have let her go, to see what else she could get.

"Get dressed. I'll meet you at the desk."

It feels good to have clothes. Her glasses -- and everything from her driver's license to the toothbrush she was carrying when she left the house -- are gone. Jack hasn't remembered to bring her spare pair.

Getting her released from the hospital takes another hour, since they have to collect all her paperwork and lab reports. She signs forms -- mostly saying she isn't going to sue anybody. In the truck, when they can finally talk, Jack fills her in. It's a three hour drive back to Colorado Springs -- she has no idea how she got here, or why she came _back_ to a place she'd gone to at random on the Other Side -- and driving is the quickest way home. There's a car full of SFs following the truck, just in case she still turns out to be ... something wrong.

Nothing to do on the drive but talk.

The SGC's been looking for her since Sunday night. Today's Friday. They estimate -- from her (unused) plane reservation -- she was captured late Saturday morning. Sammy dropped by her loft that Saturday expecting her to be there -- she'd been planning to phone Sammy from the plane and tell her she was going to be out of town for the weekend -- and when she couldn't reach Dani by Sunday night, the SGC activated the LoJack on her Jeep and found it at the airport. That was when they started looking for her in earnest. She remembers being tortured, but the drugs they used -- she remembers drugs, although there are no needle-tracks on her body -- have made her memories after Friday afternoon unreliable. She remembers driving to the airport Saturday morning -- a snapshot image of being in the Jeep, her bag beside her on the seat -- but everything around that memory is smashed and scattered. She remembers a white van, but not when she saw it, or whether it's important. She remembers someone interrogating her about events that haven't happened yet, but her captivity is fragmentary images: each one is clear, but she can't put them in any order. She tells Jack what she can. She knows she's forgetting, has forgotten, something important.

"So ... the airport." Jack says, when she's finished. His voice is as neutral as MacKenzie's. She remembers why she was going to the airport.

"Yeah, I thought... You see... I just wanted to..." She closes her eyes in frustration. She's walked into a conclave of System Lords with more composure.

"Fishing's great on the lake this time of year."

She closes her eyes more tightly. _Now. If you don't do it now you never will._ "I've always-- I just wanted you to-- You're-- Sometimes I-- You-- If I-- If-- All the time I-- Jack, just _tell me._ It's okay. I know we can't -- couldn't -- because-- I'll wait, if you-- If you'd-- I'm not ... good ... but I just had to--" Oh, god, she's babbling and he probably doesn't even know what she's talking about.

Silence. He'll want her off the team now. She knows it.

He lets go of the wheel with one hand and takes hers. For just a moment. "I'll wait," he says softly.

#

Six years? Six years and _she hadn't known? Guys_ were supposed to be clueless. And _he'd_ known. Oh yeah, he'd known. He'd known he should not be feeling any of the feelings he was feeling for her for one of his 'men'. It would only get them all in trouble.

The problem wasn't that she was a woman. After all, Carter was a woman, and from Day One, he'd had no problems with Carter. Working with Carter was great. Okay, other than the science stuff. But great. Indiana was another story. Indiana had been nothing but trouble from the first time he'd taken her through the Stargate. She'd paid absolutely no attention to the rules. Argued. Fought. Refused direct orders. Lied to him, or at least tried to. Been the most uncompromisingly loyal friend he'd ever had.

He's known the way she feels for a long time. When you're dying together, buried beneath the Antarctic ice, these things kind of come out. At first he'd been tactful and ignored it. He'd still been thinking about Sara a lot back then. And he and Indy were the last two people on Earth who ought to have seen anything in each other. After Oannes he'd stopped kidding himself. But it wasn't as if there was anything they could do about it. Civilian or not, she was under his direct command. So he kept his thoughts and his feelings to himself and did his best to treat her no differently than he treated Carter. Anything else would split the team. He hadn't wanted to think of her going off under somebody else's command. They wouldn't have been able to protect her properly. Hell, they'd probably have _shot_ her.

And for a while, too, he'd hoped she'd move on. Find some nice guy who'd be better for her than he was. Once they got Skaara back, he'd thought she might. It would have sucked, sure, but it would have been for the best. But she never did, and she never said anything, so he'd just assumed she'd come to the same conclusions he had. That she'd known.

#

"I thought maybe you ... left somebody. Over there," he says forty minutes later. They've both been silent. She hasn't felt any more need to talk.

"Not like... Like," she says.

 _Daniel._

#

"Do you want me to recommend you for SG-13?" Jack says, as they stop at the gates to Cheyenne Mountain. The question is casual. His body is tense. She knows what he's really asking. Move out from under his direct command, and they can ... fraternize. Now.

It's her choice.

He's screamed like a banshee every time he's been forced to work with a replacement. He could die, out there, alone, and she wouldn't know. She wouldn't be able to save him. Even with Anubis coming -- with the possibility they'll be dead without ever having _been_ \-- she can't do it. Not for something so much less than what they already have.

"You know, the thought of having to go around the galaxy trying to clean up after the Jack O'Neill School of Diplomacy just scares me. So I've got to say... 'no'," she says. She feels him relax. It's the answer he wanted.

#

Janet doesn't find anything. No snake. No protein markers. No _naquaadah_. She's clean.

Janet _also_ doesn't find any drug-traces (even though Dani vividly remembers needles), and even after 96 hours the SGC medical equipment should be able to turn up some residue. There should also be needle tracks, bruises, painstick burns. There are none of these things. Only the cuts and bruises left by walking barefoot for miles down a hiking trail.

There's absolutely no proof of her story. She drove to the airport. She vanished. Three days later she reappeared, naked, amnesiac and completely disoriented, several hundred miles from her last known location.

It's Sammy who suggests that what Dani remembers and what her body shows -- as well as the disorientation -- would all be consistent with imprisonment in a virtual reality device. They brought a couple of the Gamekeeper's chairs back for study. They _ought_ to be at Area 51, but then, it's possible _she's_ been at Area 51. In that case, Jack and General Hammond's best guess is that the NID thought they'd killed her and dumped her body.

But Dani's not absolutely sure it was the NID. The NID denies everything, of course.

#

Ba'al sends his fleet to Abydos. He's there and gone before the Abydans can call for help. He executes every surviving member of the Abydan royal line, including Kasuf and Skaara. He doesn't even search for the Eye of Ra.

Chess.

#

Daniel is alive again now on The Other Side. If she thinks about it a bit, she can come up with pretty much what he's doing at any given time. It's actually mission-appropriate, in terms of the over-arching project of tracking the divergence between their two timelines. They're starting to become very different now. They don't know that Over There, of course. If they looked -- if they _could_ look -- they'd still be looking for a universe where events match their own.

"It's weird, but sometimes I still miss having Daniel to talk to," she tells the others.

Twice a month, if their schedules permit, she and Sammy and Janet go out to dinner while Cassie stays with friends. Girls' night out.

"Your double. The one who ... kept dying?" Sammy asks.

Sammy's fascinated by her tales of The Other Side -- providing Dani sticks to "past" events instead of "future" ones -- especially the idea that she and Jack are ... more than fellow-officers to each other. She's pointed out that regulations forbid it. Dani's countered with the fact that they certainly aren't doing anything about it. They just _know._ Neither of them mentions what Dani's pretty sure Sammy also knows. That there it can't be Dani, because there, Dani is male. But that it _is_ Dani here.

"And Ascending. Sammy, it's so weird -- the Ancients are still right here. They could be watching us right now." Watching them eat _dim sum_ and then go back to Janet's house to watch silly video rentals? Still, if that's the way the Ascended want to spend their time... _But they won't talk to us._ Like the Nox (well, the Nox will talk a little), the Furlings, and a growing list of 'Elder Races' they're meeting. The Asgard weren't all that wild about human contact back at the beginning, either.

"Well, he sounds like the perfect invisible friend," Janet says, smiling. "Who understands you better than yourself? Or, in this case, an alternate version of yourself?"

"More to the point, he understood Minoan grammar," she says, knowing she's lying by indirection to protect the one secret she intends to keep. But she can't explain even the parts she's willing to. Daniel _wasn't_ her.

He was her other half.

She doesn't need this sort of insight now, especially since he's gone more thoroughly than death could manage. Her consolation is that she _knows_ he's alive and well in his own world, so she can't exactly mourn for him. And she and Jack...

They have an understanding.

#


	3. Chapter 3

By the time she's been back for two years, events here don't match events on the Other Side at all any more. Anubis does not have the completed Eye of Ra.

The rogue Asgard scientist Loki does not clone Jack. She gets General Hammond's permission to warn the Asgard before that happens, so it never does.

When they find the Talthans' crashed spaceship, she manages to avoid having a dozen alien personalities downloaded into her head. They call for backup and a _naquaadah_ generator before they ever go inside the ship.

 _Avenger_ is never released. No teams are stranded offworld. General Hammond recalls them all the day before, just to be sure, just in case something else takes the Gate system down, but nothing does.

Janet doesn't die. SG-13 is recalled from P3X-666 immediately upon spotting the _Goa'uld_ drone. Dani hadn't wanted General Hammond to send the mission to 666 at all, but he can't -- he tells her -- run his command on the basis of what she's learned -- or _thinks_ she's learned -- in an alternate universe. The mission is on the schedule, and it's sent. But it's pulled out immediately when SG-13 spots -- and destroys -- the drone, and Sammy's analysis of the drone's wreckage proves that events in both worlds would have -- probably -- matched.

No one but Dani and General Hammond knows that Janet would have died there, rescuing SG-13. (They're still stuck with the documentary crew, though.)

But Anubis _doesn't_ attack the Alpha Site as she read about him doing in The Other Reality. And they never encounter his Kull warriors at all, nor do the _Tok'ra_ , though the System Lords are falling rapidly, and Dani's sure the creatures are out there somewhere.

They've found the outpost under the ice in Antarctica, but Anubis doesn't attack Earth. They've recovered the second ZPM from Proklarush Taonas, too, based on what she was able to tell them. There's no need for Jack to risk a second download of the Ancient knowledge from the device on P3X-439 to find its location. (They've long-since given the device to the Asgard, anyway.) Sammy explains that foreknowledge alters outcome: Schrödinger's paradox. But they make hay -- or hey; there are variant readings of the proverb -- while the sun shines, destroy several System Lords, avoid making a few disastrous mistakes. When they send the mission to the Pegasus Galaxy that summer, for example -- long before it happens in the Other Reality -- they're able to send it with a fully-charged zero point module -- having used the timeship to retrieve the ZPM from Ancient Egypt (and gotten back safely.) And warn them about the Wraith.

President Hayes doesn't try to replace General Hammond with Elizabeth Weir, either. Kinsey's star fell long ago. And besides, Dr. Weir has gone to Atlantis.

#

On the date that marks her arrival on The Other Side, she and Jack sleep together. Literally. They're both fully clothed, and all they do is sleep. But it's in his house, in his bed.

Gate Teams still die. She doesn't have enough foreknowledge to stop that, and the universe is a dangerous place. SG-7 goes on a routine First Contact mission. They miss two scheduled check-ins. SG-5 goes through looking for them and finds their dead bodies neatly laid out by the Gate. They've been beheaded, their stomachs cut open. She's fairly sure, from the style of mutilation, that the natives thought they were _Goa'uld_ or Jaffa. They were beheaded first to kill any symbiote, then cut open to destroy a possible larval _Goa'uld_.

The wake for Major Hightower gives her an odd sense of unreality -- she's already done this -- and she drinks too much, trying to make it go away. She's the last one to (try to) leave, and Jack tells her she's in no condition to drive, which is true. (She can barely see straight.) He offers her the bed, and says he'll take the couch. She argues, because she's drunk. (His back will be killing him after a night on the couch.) She's thinking about Thule. They didn't go to Thule, but Major Hightower died anyway. It seems cosmically unfair. Or an important warning in a language she hasn't learned yet. She starts to explain to Jack about parallelism, and the behavior of avatars under controlled circumstances. And Furling symbolic language. To shut her up, he agrees to take the other half of the bed.

#

"You talk in your sleep, Indy," Jack tells her in the morning.

"What did I say?"

She's curious, nothing more. Well, that and fairly well hung. Enough coffee, and she'll be good to drive. Slowly. What they did is much too close to the Invisible Line, and they both know it. The sooner she gets out of here today, the better. She wants the endgame to be over. She wants to feel as if she's living an actual life.

"When you start talking English, I'll let you know."

 _What language?_ she wonders. But she really knows.

#

Their operating budget is cut. Not a lot -- only ten percent this year -- but General Hammond had asked for an increase. The Air Force wants to build starships instead. They understand starships.

She's been back for three years. She keeps two calendars in her head, marking her days by what she's doing here, and what she is -- _was_ \-- doing there.

She's been on The Other Side for a year. Tomorrow she and Daniel will sleep together for the first time.

She's gotten the quantum mirror moved down to her office. Sammy can't do anything else with it -- either duplicate it, or figure out how it works in the first place -- and they've exhausted the possibilities of what they can see from the vantage point of the Special Materials Lab. She'd like to see what she could see from the Gate Room, but obviously that's not an option. Her office is a good compromise. She's promised to be careful. She doesn't want to be anywhere but here.

She has the mirror angled so that it reflects the corridor outside. She stares into its surface until she starts to feel like some Classical oracle. She's probably the Galaxy's greatest expert -- other than the Furlings -- in making it work by now.

A disturbing pattern is emerging. She documents her observations and reports them to General Hammond just as she's been ordered to, but she doesn't connect the dots; a trick she learned in Academia to hide something in plain sight. She'd become resigned over the years to the fact that most people can't follow her train of thought. Now she revels in it. The perfect disguise, worthy of Sherlock Holmes.

She hasn't thought of Sherlock Holmes in years. Dad loved the Conan Doyle stories. He'd read them out loud to her and Mom at night wherever they were. _'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.'_

She's seen a thousand SGCs by now, some of them bizarre to the point of madness. She can't hear through the mirror, but she's an excellent lip-reader.

In several of them, the SGC is apparently a civilian force. Suits, not uniforms, roam the halls, inhabit her office. It looks like MIB Headquarters. In one of those, Daniel's hair is long past shoulder length. She barely recognizes him. He sits at his desk, barefoot, in jeans and a t-shirt, looking absurdly young. His hair is streaked nearly blond by the sun.

In another universe, Jack has a beard. He looks like Fidel Castro. He's wearing some kind of uniform, but she doesn't recognize it at all.

In one she doesn't see Teal'c, but both Master Brata'c and Rya'c are there in SGC uniform.

In another, everyone in the complex is wearing Nazi uniforms. The Germans originally discovered the DHD that is now in Russia, but they didn't have a Gate, because it had already been shipped to America back in the '30s. She wonders how things played out differently in that universe to let what she sees occur.

Another, and another, and another...

In one, the SGC's deserted, though apparently without violence, and has been for a long time. The facility still has minimal power -- the emergency lighting is all that shines in the corridors -- but there's no one there. She watches an empty hall for almost an hour before dialing onward.

In another, _Earth_ isn't there at all, no matter how diminished. Her vantage point shows her nothing but an empty starfield.

In the next, red-shelled aliens roam the halls openly, the ones who once tried to conquer Earth. She doesn't see any hologram disguises anywhere. She's watching that one when the _Goa'uld_ attack it. She takes notes and films through the mirror as Ba'al's Jaffa take the complex. It doesn't take them long to wipe out all the lobsters.

(Ba'al serves Anubis.)

There's one SGC where Replicators swarm the halls. There are blast marks on the walls, but she doesn't see any people. That's one variant the Goa'uld won't bother conquering. But in nearly all the others where there _is_ a Stargate Command, in any variation, the Goa'uld win. And what's worse, they keep winning. She re-visits particular variations. Some that were fine the first time she looked have been destroyed -- or have gone dark -- the next time she looks.

There's a hierarchical branching of possibility that begins on the day in 1928 that the Gate is discovered on the Giza plateau. Catherine's team gets it to work in 1996, once Dani -- or Daniel -- translates the coverstone. Dani (or Daniel) goes with Jack's team to Abydos. Stargate Command is created. Jack goes back to Abydos a year later. The two of them, plus Sammy, go to Chulak and bring back Teal'c.

More and more of the universes established by that chain of events -- or something on the very close order -- are crashing into chaos.

The alternate universes are collapsing.

A few days later she's revisiting one of the variations that seems to be normal (or close to it), when she sees ... herself. She's walking down the corridor next to Daniel. She's looking at the universe the Furlings sent her to. She feels a heart-stopping clutch of homesickness, as if she were looking at Abydos.

They stop in the doorway of -- her office here, his office there. Reading their lips, she remembers their conversation that day. They were both working on the same sample of Ancient writing, and arguing about tense forms. The language of the Ancients seems to have no specific words for 'past' and 'future.'

'She' walks on down the corridor. Daniel enters his office. For a moment he looks right at her -- through the mirror -- as if he sees her. It's impossible, of course.

#

She thinks she's finally solved the Furling's riddle. The first one, anyway. (They never really solved the last one. They cheated.) She begins researching Game Theory. Jack is able to help her there, once she figures out how to explain what she needs. They play War Games in the Mountain all the time, up in NORAD, like a high-tech version of 'Strategy'. Every possible variation on a scenario. In all scenarios, there's a Critical Path that leads to the optimal outcome. To achieve the Critical Path, specific things have to happen in a specific order, separated by the right amount of time, neither too much nor too little. If even one variable is different, Critical Path will not be achieved. All other variations lead to what the literature calls a 'sub-optimal outcome'. For the SGC, Sub-Optimal Outcome is the destruction of Earth by the _Goa'uld_.

She has a growing conviction that their scenario -- their _universe_ \-- is playing out a 'sub-optimal variation'. She doesn't tell anyone.

Telling them might make things worse.

But she can't just do nothing. She can't just ask General Hammond to let her use the Gate on a whim, either. Especially when she won't -- can't -- explain why. She picks her moment carefully, waiting weeks for her chance, a time when she's traveling through the Gate alone. She's supposed to be heading back to Earth from an offworld archaeological site.

She goes to Kheb instead.

#

"Only one river reaches the sea," she says aloud.

She's standing in front of the Gate. There's no point in searching for what she won't find. If she's going to find it, it will be right here.

"Yes. What is a river when it is unmoving?"

There's a woman standing in front of her. She ... glows. It must be Oma Desala. She's found the Ascended.

"A ... lake?" She knows that isn't the right answer. "A river that doesn't run isn't a river."

Oma smiles. "A seeker can find no home but his own."

This is all very well, but it isn't getting them anywhere. "We're going to die because I'm not Daniel," she blurts out.

"There is beauty in all roads, but they do not lead to the same place," Oma says gently.

"There's no beauty in _dying!_ " Dani says. She doesn't think she's looked away, but she has, and when she looks back, Oma is gone. No matter what Dani does or says, Oma won't return. She Gates back to her starting point, then goes home from there so there will be no trace of her detour to Kheb.

They're going to die, she thinks. All of them. Everyone on Earth. _Not every river reaches the sea._ She thinks she believes it now, but she still can't make herself accept it. (But she knows it. Shouldn't she act on what she knows? Somehow?)

If she left the Team, she and Jack could spend ... time together. If she left the Team, he might die offworld and she wouldn't be there. It's still as true now as it ever was.

She stays.

#

She's been on The Other Side for over two years now. Home for more than four. Every time the SGC's budget comes up for consideration, it gets ... _trimmed_ ... a little further. After all, the _Goa'uld_ menace seems to be a thing of the past, and Washington feels it's time to move on. Even General Hammond thinks it's possible their universe may have diverged enough from the Other Side that what she remembers about the future isn't true any more. And they _did_ manage to take out the Ancient machine at Dakara. A big risk, but she called in her marker with the _Tok'ra_ , and the Asgard helped. One big strike from space, and the machine -- and half the temple complex -- were gone. (They're still smoothing things over with the Free Jaffa, though the Asgard beamed the Jaffa at the temple out before the strike.)

The trouble is, Ba'al didn't retaliate. He should have. She knows Anubis didn't let him, and that scares her to death.

If Anubis had lost when they destroyed the Ancient machine, he would have taken revenge at once.

Wouldn't he?

#

The mirror resets itself to a random dimension every time it's turned off. She's always careful to turn it off and lock up the controller every time she leaves her office. She has a box with a palmprint lock that only she, Jack, Sammy, and General Hammond can open. It's quick, which is good, because sometime she's in a real hurry. But she never forgets.

It's easy to find The Other Reality now. There are less than half-a-dozen places left to see.

Empty space.

Flat Earth.

An empty missile silo.

Replicators.

And Daniel.

They've almost reached the place -- on the Other Side -- where she leaves to come back here. A few more months, and she'll be seeing events through the mirror that have no correspondence with anything she remembers.

She's moved the mirror to the very back of her office, out of the range of the security cameras -- it's still on the dolly they moved it down here on, so that's possible, though not easy -- and turned it so that it's in a direct line of sight with her desk. She's taken the Plexiglas covering off it as well, to get a better view. It's easy enough to just switch it off when someone comes in, and she often keeps it covered with a tarp, anyway.

She ought to just send it back to Storage. There's nothing more to learn. Eventually, she's sure, this last handful of universes will go dark as well. But watching Daniel -- watching _herself_ with Daniel -- is addictive. Or soothing. Or painful. Or all three.

It's years ago, but it's happening now. The paradox distracts her, at least a little. She was happy there. It was a quieter sort of happiness. The highs and lows of it were different. She wouldn't trade what she has now for her life on the Other Side, but sometimes she wishes there were a way to have ... both.

Impossible.

 _Greedy,_ she tells herself.

#

A year after Henry Hayes takes office, he slashes their operating budget again -- by sixty percent this time. The System Lords and lesser _Goa'uld_ they haven't killed, Ba'al and Anubis have, and after Dakara, the Joint Chiefs feel that the SGC has fairly well undermined 'the _Goa'uld_ menace' and wants to concentrate on their budding starfleet. The money for that has to come from somewhere, and the SGC is one of the most expensive secret projects the government has. Their budget was almost eight billion a year at its height -- it's one point seven billion after the cuts. It sounds like a lot of money. It's barely enough to pay their electric bill. It costs over a quarter of a million dollars each time they activate the Stargate.

Hayes throws them a sop. He creates the Department of Homeworld Affairs to oversee everything that's come out of the Program -- and to pave the way, someday, for Disclosure. General Hammond's promoted to run it. He gets another star out of the deal.

That leaves the SGC without a commander. But her "foreknowledge" has made them all shine, and Jack's the obvious person to take over the SGC. (What's left of the SGC.) They offer him the job, and a General's stars to go with it. Of course he accepts. Daniel told her that Jack-there had talked about not taking the promotion, but his SGC wasn't being legislated out of existence. Here, Jack doesn't hesitate, though they all know it a desk job isn't really what he wants. She knows that between them, he and General Hammond hope to reverse the damage the bureaucrats are doing, even if General Hammond agrees with Washington that the _Goa'uld_ are no longer a real threat. And better Jack -- far better -- than someone who will finish shutting them down and get people killed in the process.

General Hammond calls them both into his office on his last day. The handover ceremony is in a few hours. Jack will receive his commission then. After which he will be Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, Commander, SGC.

The office looks stripped and bare, stacked with cartons of personal effects that will be going with General Hammond to Washington. Barring some major crisis in the next few hours, his work here is over.

There are two large file boxes on his desk. They can't be going with him. They have SGC labels on them.

"Colonel, Doctor. Colonel, now that you are about to take over my job, I am going to reveal to you one of the most closely-guarded secrets of Stargate Command. And since Dr. Jackson was so closely involved, I think it only fair she be here as well."

She and Jack glance at each other, puzzled.

"Some weeks after your mission to Kelowna I had Dr. Jackson debriefed regarding her experiences in the alternate universe. The films and the tape of the interview were subsequently destroyed, and she's only identified by initials on this transcript." He indicates the boxes. "I realize that I should have forwarded a copy of it to the Pentagon, but somehow I never got around to it. I just don't think anybody needs to know that much about the future. At any rate, Jack, it's your problem now. This is the only copy. When I leave this room I intend to forget it ever existed."

Jack walks over to the desk and opens the nearest box cautiously. It's filled with bound folders in SGC blue. Each is a uniform one inch thick.

"I think I'll wait for the movie," he says, closing the box.

#

After the handover ceremony -- Jack looks dazzling, as always, in his dress blues, and she's wearing a suit she bought especially for the occasion -- there's a farewell party for General Hammond. There's a cake, with a candle for every year he's been head of the SGC. A number of people greet Jack as incoming Base Commander as well.

Sammy looks smug. She's going to get SG-1 now. And Jack has just made her a Lt. Colonel. (Here, too.) He enjoyed that. But right now he looks horribly uncomfortable. The eternal discipline problem is about to be in charge of discipline.

There are various gifts -- mostly for General Hammond, though Jack gets one or two gag gifts. She has something for him, too. It's in an envelope in her jacket. She'll give it to him in private.

Then it's a couple of hours later, and General Hammond's gone up the elevator for the last time. She looks for Jack in his old office, and doesn't find him, then goes to look for him in his _new_ office. He's standing looking out at the Stargate. He hasn't moved any of his stuff into the General's office yet. The two boxes of her debriefing are gone. She regards him, eyebrows raised.

"I had Walter stuff 'em in a burn-bag," he says, not turning around. "Took 'em up to the incinerator."

"General?" she says. Just to see how it sounds. Jack makes a faintly rude noise of disbelief. She told him (years ago) he'd make General. He hadn't believed her. "I've come to request reassignment."

"Did you have anything in mind?"

"A desk job." She thinks of the endless reams of irrelevant paperwork on which the military thrives and quails slightly. In a desk job, it multiplies exponentially. But she made up her mind to this a long time ago.

"People will talk, Doctor Jackson," Jack says lightly.

"I've survived worse."

#

One of her first jobs in her new deskbound posting is triage. General Hammond yelled bloody murder every time their budget was slashed, and General O'Neill yells now, but even with his new backing in Washington Jack can't get the money replaced. For the first time in the history of the SGC, they have more qualified personnel than places for them in the program. Her days are spent reviewing personnel files and making recommendations for reassignments. It looks like they're finally going to clear up that backlog in Cataloguing and Translation if they can hold onto their specialists long enough. Their best and brightest are being bled off to Area 51, and the Pentagon is pushing for Sammy to resign her field commission as well, but she's head of SG-1 now, and Jack is backing that to the hilt.

The Pentagon is also pushing for a 'redirection' of the Stargate Program. Less cultural exploration and interstellar diplomacy. More bringing useful things back and screw everything else. At the same time, it wants to offer access to the Gate to other countries. Foreign teams, with their own agendas. Bringing their own money.

Jack isn't pleased.

There's little she can do to help.

#

It's a ... well, call it a train wreck. Generals should mind their language at least. (He really doesn't feel a lot like minding his manners.) Four years ago their budget was eight billion bucks. This year it's less than a quarter of that. One quarter the budget means one quarter of everything. Gate Teams. Support specialists. Equipment. And General Hammond says this is just the beginning. Without Indy, he's not sure what he'd do. For one thing, she keeps him from hitting anybody.

With the redirection of the SGC, the cuts hit her department hardest. He never hears any complaints, even indirectly. In fact, the parade of outraged eggheads he expects to see coming through his office door never arrives at all. Lucky him.

She knows who she wants to keep, who she can let go immediately, who she hopes to hold onto for at least a few months to clear up their backlog in Cataloging and Translation.

He knows she never wanted to spend her time as an administrator. Well, he'd never expected to spend his flying a desk in a sinking ship. So to speak.

She's more help than he expected she could be with the Science Geeks, too. Anything that even looks like research is something that is no longer in the budget. She's able to make recommendations there, too. Her memos are reassuringly short.

His hours aren't. He's got to turn nineteen SG Teams -- down from twenty-four just a few years ago -- into ... eight. The people he loses he'll never be able to replace. He needs to keep as many as he can, and that means stripping the budgets of other departments even further.

Crap.

#

"What are you still doing here?"

It ought to be his line, but she's the one who says it. She comes into the office carrying a tray and a thermal carafe.

"Questioning your commanding officer, Doctor?"

"Hmph." She picks up the pile of still-need-to-be-read reports and files from the middle of his desk and moves them, and sets down the tray in the empty space.

"Hey!" On the other hand, there are sandwiches. And pie. He inspects the insides of several of the sandwiches cautiously before choosing one.

"It's after 2200. I bet you worked through dinner. You're not going to get all this done in the first week. You've got to sleep sometime."

"You sound like Fraiser."

"Janet is home in bed."

"As you should be."

"Too much work," she says.

"Ah?" Sauce for the gander is.

#

She pours coffee for both of them, takes one of the sandwiches. "So?" she says.

"So?"

"Wha'cha doin', Jack?" He looks so tired. These cuts are a disaster. None of them will be able to do their jobs on this ... shoestring. How many teams will he be able to keep with the new budget? She's losing practically everybody in her department. Her Assyriologists. Her Mezo-American specialists. Her Asian experts. The other Egyptologists. Most of the people who know _Goa'uld_ \-- or any of the other offworld languages -- are being transferred to Area 51. Well, at least they still have jobs.

"Figuring out which Gate teams get the ... gate. Nothing you can help me with."

"Huh." Her tone is disbelieving.

"Indy, you're great with the geeks--"

She sighs. _Geek Girl, that's me._ "Jacky Boy, you really haven't been listening for the last four years, have you?"

"I listen," he says, sounding indignant. But he's staring at the paperwork, not at her.

"So... tell me what Gate Teams I've been a member of."

He looks up. Regards her with raised eyebrows. "And this would be... a trick question."

"Ja-a-a-ck. SG-1. Obviously. And... SG-7. SG's 6, 19, 8, 2, 15, 4, 11, 13, oh, and a couple more I can't remember off the top of my head. I've worked in the field with just about every unit in the SGC except 3, and you know we've worked with them on combined missions."

"Not here," he says simply.

 _That doesn't matter._ "The people are the same. I mean, it's your call, but I went through GTO &T on the Other Side with Pike, York, Chambers, and Bukowski, for example, then I did three months on SG-15 with Pike and Bukowski, later. I know these people."

He leans back in his chair and stretches. She can see that the idea of her going through GTO&T amuses him. "Something else you didn't mention?"

"It was all in that report you burned. Not my fault you didn't read it first." Although she's just as glad he didn't. General Hammond wouldn't have caught it, the interrogators didn't catch it, but she bets Jack would have seen what she'd left out. She's always believed Jack knows everything. That it is impossible to lie to him, though that's certainly never stopped her from trying. For his own good. For the good of the mission.

"Okay. Come over here."

#

She walks around to his side of the desk and stands next to him. The other thing that makes all this bearable -- in fact, entertaining in places -- is watching her _wait_ at him. For him to make the move they've both put off for so long. Because they're no longer on the same Gate team. In fact, neither of them is on any Gate team at all. The freedom would actually be a slightly scary feeling -- assuming, of course, Generals ever got scared. They're both in their right minds. Not infected by an alien virus. Not drugged. Not brainwashed into believing they're two other people. Anything that they do now will be done clear-eyed, sane, and sober. If he puts it off much longer, he suspects she might stop being ladylike -- assuming Indiana had any concept of what being a lady was like -- and drag him under the desk.

He rests a hand on her hip. Pulling her closer -- to the desk of course. Picks up another half sandwich with his free hand. Sets it aside and moves the tray. Pulls the stack of folders back. Picks up the sandwich.

"Okay. We're going down to eight teams, that's a maximum of 40 people. SG-3 and -5 stay as they are. So does SG-9. Everything else is up for grabs."

"SG-1?"

"Keeping Carter and Teal'c. Taking a look at Sands and Mallory."

"Okay, let's get to it."

They finish the sandwiches, the pie, and the coffee around midnight. But they've done a first cut on the team personnel. He's chosen the commanders he'll keep. He'll rebuild the five remaining teams around them with their input.

It occurs to him -- on the subject of things done while clear-eyed, sane, and sober -- that he's never kissed her properly. It's a lapse worth remedying. But not on the Base. And certainly not in the General's office.

He just can't shake the feeling that General Hammond might walk in.

#

"General O'Neill."

"Dr. Fraiser."

He's keeping Fraiser if humanly possible. If he's sending people through the Gate, there's got to be somebody to take care of them when they come back. And Fraiser has been here almost from the beginning.

The intel Indy brought back from the Other Side saved Fraser's life.

She sits down. "You're working too hard."

"General's privilege, Doctor."

"Have you been home _once_ in the last two weeks?"

Actually, he's been sleeping on-Base as often as not. More often than not. Who knew General Hammond had such a fancy little hideaway? "I'm afraid that's Need-to-Know, Doc."

"I can find out," Fraiser says warningly. "And when I _do_ find out, I can write a recommendation that will go in your record."

 _Busted._ "Okay, Doc, what do you want?"

"Shorter days. More rest. Sleep in your own bed -- the one at home. Take weekends off. A little gym time wouldn't kill you, either. You may not be in the field any more, General, but you still have to pass your physicals."

At least the next one isn't for six months. Still, much as he hates to admit it, she's right. And he's got a pretty good idea of who put this bee in her bonnet, too.

"Sure, Doc." He can tell she isn't convinced. He sighs. "Really."

"General--"

"Honest."

She gets to her feet, still only half-convinced. But that's better than nothing.

"Oh, and Doc? Do me a favor? On your way back to Medical, could you stop by Dr. Jackson's office and remind her that the working day for her department stops at 1700 and I expect her to be signed out no later than 1800? I really think she's been working too hard."

Fraiser smiles. "Of course, General."

He knows exactly how long it will take Fraiser to get up to 18 and have her little chat. He glances at his watch. _And three... two... one..._

She barrels into his office and slams her hands down on his desk, for all the world as if she hopes to intimidate him. " _Jack!_ You can't do this to me!"

"Indiana. I can."

"I have a lot of work to do!"

"So do I. And since Fraiser isn't gonna let either of us do it, you want to come over to my place this weekend for dinner?"

She straightens up so abruptly he'd almost think she hadn't been intending for this to happen all along. "Uh. Sure. I... I'll bring dessert."

She's gonna _be_ dessert.

#

He's standing over the grill, watching the coals, when he hears her Jeep pull up. Coals are very important. The heat has to be just right.

He sees the light on the sensor box flash as she walks in the front door. He hates locked doors -- a leftover quirk from all that prison time -- but he does like to know when there's someone in the house. After a moment or two, she walks out onto the deck, carrying a bottle of Glenfiddich and two glasses. She's wearing jeans and a t-shirt. A _tight_ t-shirt. The jeans and the t-shirt don't quite ... meet.

"This is dessert?" He takes the bottle from her and opens it. Pours.

"Cake's in the kitchen."

"Coals are almost ready."

"Yeah, I saw the ... cow."

He smirks at her. "Guy needs his strength."

She's blushing. She's actually blushing. He goes into the kitchen to get the steaks.

#

She's scared.

She wants to be here. _He_ wants her to be here. But there's so much room for disaster. She doesn't have a script. She doesn't have an excuse. Nothing to hide behind. They've never actually _said._ Guys don't _say,_ do they?

She leans against the railing, feeling the late-summer sun beat into her shoulders. Her glass is cool and hard in her hand. He comes back out with a tray full of raw meat. Sets it down beside the grill. Walks over to her. Takes the glass out of her hand. Sets it on the rail. Watching her all the time.

There are a hundred points at which she could withdraw, saying without words: _not now -- not ever._ But she doesn't. She reaches for him, leaning up to be kissed. To kiss.

He puts his arms around her, settles her firmly against him.

He's tall. He tastes of Scotch, smells of charcoal and fresh-washed flannel and soap. The falling sensation is something she only ever associated with Gate travel before.

Eventually he leans his cheek against her neck. He's shaved, but that was hours ago. His skin is slightly rough.

"Those coals won't wait," he says. His voice has a kind of huskiness to it now that she's never heard before. Reluctantly, she lets him go.

#

He supposes it isn't right in any number of ways to think of kissing Indy as being one of the perks of making General, but there it is. It certainly seems to have been worth the wait.

The steaks hit the grill with just the right hiss and sizzle. The coals are fine. She's more than fine.

He wants to make everything fine for her. Perfect. What she deserves. She deserves better than Jack O'Neill, but apparently she's made up her mind, and he knows how stubborn she is. So be it.

Give the lady what she wants.

When the steaks are cooked to his satisfaction -- meaning thoroughly dead; he distrusts food that looks as if it still might be moving -- they eat. Steak. Baked potatoes buried in butter and sour cream. That medical review is months away.

"Game's on," he says, checking his watch. "Rangers versus Blackhawks. Exhibition game."

She gives him a mocking smile. "You know I'm a big hockey fan."

"Well, c'mon, then."

They take a couple of long-necks and settle in on the couch. She kicks off her sandals and curls up under his arm, her head on his shoulder. The Rangers are beating the hell out of the Blackhawks.

"You know," she says, after a while, "The Aztecs played a similar game. Not on ice, of course. The entire winning team was beheaded."

"Hard to get to the playoffs that way." His fingers are tracing the band of bare skin between the waistband of her jeans and the hem of her t-shirt.

"Jack?" she says after a few more minutes.

"H'm?"

"Do we _have_ to watch all of this?"

"No." The machine's recording, anyway. He presses a button. The screen goes dark. He sets the remote on the table. And turns to something more interesting than hockey.

#

"Indy, I'm not doing this on my couch. I'm not seventeen anymore, dammit."

She laughs silently, her body quivering, face buried against his neck, one leg hooked over the back of his. The sensations all this produces are interesting, but not really helpful.

"Then I guess you'd better make a strategic retreat, General."

 _Retreat, hell, I just got here._ He untangles himself and pulls her to her feet. They're both still dressed -- more or less -- a situation he intends to remedy immediately.

He leads her back to the bedroom.

#

The presence of the bed is neither a surprise nor a shock -- it's Jack's bedroom, after all, and she's been here before, even slept in this bed -- but it's the symbol of what's about to happen and it does something to her she can't describe. Something that is somehow neither apprehension nor anticipation.

She's left her glasses in the other room.

She slides out of her jeans quickly and scrambles into bed, removing the rest of her clothes under the cover of the sheets and dropping them on the far side. It's not a pretty body. Too many scars.

"I'm not letting you get away with that," Jack warns her, sitting down to remove his shoes. She pretends she doesn't hear him.

He rolls under the covers, but doesn't turn the bedside light out. She realizes that she wants to see him more than she wants to hide. She can see him clearly if he's close enough. He lifts the sheet away, runs his fingers over her skin.

They begin again.

#

They are ... _touching._

And -- without warning -- irresistible horror boils up out of her mind, replacing where she is with where she has been. With Jack, naked, in someone else's arms. And what came after. Her muscles tense as she struggles in panic, fighting him. She can't. _They_ can't.

Gasping, Jack pulls away. Released, she coils into a tight ball, her back to him. Her heart hammers. The images fade a little, but don't go away. Her mind echoes with a _Goa'uld_ Queen's laughter. Hathor took something from her, but she left something behind as well. She's tainted. Unclean. She can't do this after all.

"Indy? What's goin' on?" His voice is remarkably casual, all things considered.

"I--" Self-hatred dries any incipient tears. "I owe you an explanation."

"That you do."

 _I can do this with anyone else in the universe. Just not with you. Not with the only one I really want to do it with._ There's a long silence. She wants to speak, but she can't find the words.

"Just leading me on, were you?"

It's cruel, but it works. "Back to those happy days of watching Hathor fuck you senseless while two of her zombies held me down and made me watch, you mean?" Her voice is harsh as she blurts out the ugly truth. She sees it. She can't stop seeing it.

There's a beat of silence.

"Who?" Jack's voice is expressionless.

"I don't remember."

" _Who_?"

" _They_ don't remember. It doesn't matter." It's true. None of the men Hathor bespelled at the SGC remembers anything about what happened.

"That wasn't in your report."

No. She'd been desperately careful. She'd said Jack had been in Hathor's quarters when Hathor had her brought there. She hadn't said that Hathor had brought her there _before_ Hathor'd had sex with Jack. Making her watch.

#

 _At Hathor's command, the airmen pull her back against them, force her to her knees. Someone's hand is in her hair, turning her to face the bed._

 _"Close your eyes, and I will put his out." Hathor laughs at her. Knowing. The Goa'uld are clever about humans in some ways. Hathor is the cleverest of all. She's seen Dani look at Jack._

 _Dani watches it all. Hears it all._

And then -- this is in her report, part of it -- Hathor had walked over to her, leaving the tumbled bed.

 _The airmen lift her to her feet. Hathor rips open the waistband of her pants. Air against her skin. The jewels on the Goa'uld ribbon device glow brightly. She struggles -- wildly, uselessly -- not knowing what is to come but knowing it will be bad. Hathor reaches forward and plunges her hand into her abdomen. The Goa'uld Queen's fingers sink through her flesh as if it were smoke._

 _First heat, the little sister of pain. Then pain, as Hathor gropes within her. Hathor's fingers close. She withdraws her hand._

 _Tearing._

 _The skin of Dani's abdomen is still unbroken. Hathor's hand is clean, except for the blood that trickles between her closed fingers._

 _"And for my new Jaffa's prim'ta, a comfortable bed." Hathor says happily. "You would wish this for him."_

 _Hathor puts what she holds into her mouth. Swallows it whole, like a snake with a mouse._

 _The pain is agonizing as violated muscles cramp and spasm. Acid rises in Dani's throat. The men holding her let go. She drops to her knees, falls to her side, curling around the pain. She couldn't move now if her life depended on it. Blood soaks her trousers, gushing tidally with every beat of her heart._

 _Hathor laughs._

 _Lost in pain, Dani does not see Hathor leave, taking the men with her. Taking Jack._

 _When Sammy and Janet come looking for Hathor, they find Dani instead._

#

Janet got Dani to the Infirmary in time to keep her from bleeding to death. She did an emergency operation, cauterizing severed arteries. No one -- not Sammy, not Janet -- _no one_ \-- ever knew the rest.

Jack's touch on her shoulder startles her out of memory. Not tentative, but definitely asexual, even though they're naked in bed together. He might as well be on the moon.

"Why?" _Why not tell?_

"It wasn't you. It was never you. It was her." She wouldn't see him shamed for what Hathor did.

She feels him get out of bed. He's going to ask her to leave. She should leave without being asked. She's waited half her life for this man and she can't have him. It's not that she can't have sex. She's had sex since Hathor. It's that -- because of Hathor -- she can have anyone but Jack. (She will not think of Daniel in Jack's bed.)

He comes back, sits down on the bed. "Here."

She jumps as he touches her shoulder with something cold and wet. She reaches over -- without looking -- and takes the beer. She has to sit up to drink it, carefully tucking the sheet up under her armpits.

"You're not going to hog all the covers, are you?" His tone is faintly aggrieved, deliberately casual, as if they weren't just doing...

What they just didn't do.

She shakes her head -- no, she is not a cover-hog. It's difficult to entertain thoughts of high drama while drinking a long-neck. And Jack hates drama, anyway. When they're finished, he takes the bottles into the kitchen -- he's still wearing his robe, a blue one that he stole from the SGC -- comes back to bed, takes it off, and turns out the light. Matter-of-factly. Not giving her any opening to bolt and run.

"Good night, Indiana."

"Good night, Jack." It would be rude to ignore him.

#

She's exhausted herself -- mostly by _not_ crying; she's never been big on tears -- and falls asleep after a few minutes. O'Neill lies awake longer, thinking of all the ways he'd kill Hathor all over again if he had her here now. He knew Hathor ... hurt ... Indy. It's the details that are vile, and Indy remembers all of it, because Hathor's particular brand of hoodoo has -- _had_ \-- no effect on women. So none of the men she took over remember anything that happened to them. _He_ doesn't remember. Not much, anyway. Vague nightmare images. A sense of being buried alive. He doesn't remember seeing Indy at all.

Indy was the only woman singled out for Hathor's personal attention. And she never told any more about it than she had to. Because...

Why?

 _Oh come on, O'Neill. You know why._ It'd been bad enough being singled out as Hathor's love slave. It would have been a thousand times worse knowing there was a witness. A million times worse knowing it was Indy. But now he knows, and he isn't thinking about how he feels. He's thinking about how she felt.

They have to get past this. Somehow.

Eventually he manages to fall asleep. The morning sun shining in the windows wakes him. He forgot to close the curtains last night. Well, it's private up here. But it's still too much sun too early. He starts to move, and realizes Indiana's snuggled up against him as if it's the most natural thing in the world. She's got an arm across his chest, one leg cocked over his thigh, and has managed to pillow her head on his shoulder in such a way that his arm hasn't fallen asleep. That takes practice.

Obviously, she's gotten in some practice. Somewhere. Sometime. He breathes a heartfelt prayer of gratitude to whatever unknown stranger was involved. He'd been afraid after last night she could never...

But no. It's just a bad memory -- okay, a _really_ bad memory. Not permanent damage. They can replace that memory with a better one.

One of the things he knows for sure about Indiana is that in the morning -- short of incoming weapons fire -- she is NCBC -- Not Conscious Before Coffee. And that gives him an idea. There may be a way to make this work. For both of them. All he has to do is keep her from thinking. From remembering.

He untangles the two of them -- carefully, so as not to wake her up. Then sets about waking her up.

#

There's every reason not to be quite awake just now, and she trusts her instincts, but even less than half-awake, what's going on is very nice. A dream? She's dreamed of Jack this way so many times.

There's something she never wanted to tell him. That she loves him? No, she wanted to tell him that.

His mouth is on her skin and she lets the thought go. His breath is warm in her ear. She feels his weight.

"Indy? You okay?"

"M'm." Much more than okay. She puts her arms around him, raises her hips to his, closes the last of the distance between them. By the time she's fully awake, she couldn't engage in a bout of meditative introspection if she wanted to. She's too busy being exactly where she is right now.

With Jack.

It is different than anything that has ever happened before in her life. That makes it new. That makes _her_ new. He's exactly what she wanted. What she imagined. What she dreamed of. Even before she understood that she was dreaming of him. That she _could_ dream of him. And he's not a dream, a depthless denatured reflection of reality. He is real, and the only reflection of the way she's dreamed of him is in the way he looks at her.

She sees the way she's looked at him in the way he looks at her. And then she sees nothing at all.

Afterward, lying against his chest, tangled in damp sheets, she cautiously probes the memory of Hathor. It's still poisonous. She'll always have to be careful. But she has this memory to set against it now. And memories they have yet to create. Someday the memories will build a wall.

"So. coffee?"

"This is lots better than coffee," she answers.

"I'll be sure to tell the Commissary."

#

"So how was your weekend?" Janet wants to know on Monday.

"Watched some hockey. Blackhawks beat the Rangers in overtime. I won five bucks."

"Well, you look a lot better. Hockey seems to agree with you."

"Yeah. I think I could actually get to like it."

Janet smiles.

#

At the end of Jack's second month in command the two of them fly to his cabin in Minnesota for the weekend. She's never been there. Teal'c said the mosquitoes are fierce. (Well, that's not precisely what he said, but she figured it out from context.)

Jack teaches her to fish -- though technically speaking, he teaches her to _cast_ , since apparently there are no fish in the lake, and catching the nonexistent fish is not the point. They don't do a lot of talking. Talking has never been the point, either. They drive to the local bait shop in the beater truck he keeps at the cabin, buy fish and beer. He cooks.

She sleeps a lot.

#

She's talking in her sleep again. Muttering, actually. It's always the same language. It sounds familiar, but he can't identify it. At first -- especially after she told him about Hathor -- he worried she was having nightmares, but no. She always sounds ... conversational. But who's she talking to?

Actually, he's pretty sure he knows the answer to that. To whoever there was for her on The Other Side. It's not that he's jealous. That's the truth. Whoever it was sent her back to him safe and more sound than she'd been when she left. He's just curious.

She rolls over and says one last sentence, louder, then falls deeply asleep. He still doesn't understand the words, but the names are clear.

 _Sha're. Dana're._

Dana're's what they called her on Abydos. Offhand, he cannot think of a lot of people at the SGC -- now or ever -- who are fluent in Conversational Abydan.

Except Indy.

He has his answer. He understands why she's never told him. Why she'll probably never tell him. But it still doesn't matter.

At the end of the weekend, they fly back.

#

Monday.

She sees Sammy in the commissary with the new SG-1. Mallory and Sands are long gone. Sammy pitched a fit over that, but there were other people Jack wanted to keep even more, and Sands and Mallory were among the newest arrivals.

She fills her tray and goes and sits alone. She has to plan another series of cuts this week -- not people she'll lose immediately, but they'll go at the end of this funding cycle. Part of her new job is helping find the people that leave places in the outside world. It's hard, since many of them have spent years in a top-secret world doing things they'll never be able to talk about.

"So... how was your weekend?" Sammy sits down opposite her.

"It was good."

"Hockey?"

Thanks to Jack's obsession, she can actually name the teams in the Western Confederation by now. The game itself is still Greek to her, though. Except for the fact that she knows Greek. Three dialects.

"Yeah." There's a radio up at the cabin.

Sammy grins at her. "Back where I come from, we spell 'hockey' a little differently. You might want to consider switching to turtlenecks."

Sammy reaches out, touches the side of her neck with a fingertip. _Oh._ She pulls her lab coat closed, buttons it. "Thanks."

#

Despite the Asgard having the Ancient database, their war against the escaped Replicators isn't going well. The Asgard can't extract the information they need from it. It's too large, too complicated. They require a human interface.

They _have_ managed to construct what they believe is a safe buffering device, one that will keep a human mind from being overwritten by the Ancient database.

Sammy volunteers for the mission. Jack doesn't want to let her go. But _he_ can't go. And if the Asgard destroy the Replicators in the Asgard galaxy, that changes the endgame once and for all -- possibly enough to save them. The Asgard will destroy Anubis and his fleet if they don't have the Replicators to deal with.

Jack sends SG-1 to meet Thor. He doesn't let Dani go along.

Sammy finds the information the Asgard need, and they build a prototype weapon that can destroy the Bugs. But it's not large enough to retake Othalla with, and while the Asgard are building a larger version, SG-1 takes the prototype down to the surface to try to take out the Replicator command post. Sammy believes the assault is being led by surviving humanoform Replicators, and that destroying them will buy the Asgard more time.

She's captured. Teal'c, James, and Thompson -- the new SG-1 -- continue to attack without her. When the Replicator ship flees Othalla, it leaves Sammy behind. She doesn't remember anything of what happened while she was in Replicator hands.

Dani has a pretty good idea. She doesn't say. Jack doesn't ask.

The future's still coming -- the future the Other SGC survived because Daniel Ascended a second time -- and she can't stop it. Their last hope is if the Replicators attack the _Goa'uld_ and the two of them completely destroy each other. Or if the Replicators win, even -- they still have the Disruptor cannon.

But Evil Robot Sam never comes to the SGC asking for help to defeat Fifth.

Chess.

Dani thinks Anubis has found an endgame he likes better.

#

On the day Jack gives her the ring, Daniel is waiting for her in her apartment.

Dani will never really figure out why hockey is supposed to be so fascinating, but Jack is wholly engaged by the sight of men on skates beating each other with sticks. At least it gives her a chance to catch up on her reading. He doesn't actually mind if she ignores the television screen, as long as she's there. And she doesn't ask him to keep abreast of the latest hot feuds in the _Journal of the International Archaeological Society._ He's been a little restless during the game, but she'd figured he was just fussing over the continuing string of financially-driven disasters at the SGC. At least they haven't lost a Gate Team since he's been General. Small mercies _(considering what's coming, but she tries not to think about that because she doesn't want to convince herself her fears are real)_.

But then the game is over, and she puts aside her pile of magazines and papers and picks up the empties to take off to the kitchen. She glances out the kitchen window. March and still snowing. Why couldn't the Stargate be at Groom Lake?

Jack follows her into the kitchen. "You want another beer?" she asks, absently inspecting the contents of the refrigerator. It's too cold to cook on the deck, and besides, it's _snowing._ She wonders what they'll have for dinner. They could order out, but it seems a shame to drag delivery people out in this. Well, she sees eggs.

"Want to ask you a question."

"Hm?" Maybe there's something better than eggs to be conjured out of the contents of this refrigerator, but even after two and a half years in an alternate universe and five back here she still can't cook.

 _"Indiana."_

She straightens up and turns around, shutting the door. "Jack?"

He's holding something in his hand. It's small. He flicks it open, one-handed, as if it were a cigarette lighter. (She's just as glad he gave up cigarettes on Abydos or she'd have asthma by now.) She sees the ring, the diamond, flash. It is the symbol of an unmistakable intent. _Never assume. Always play for time._ He taught her that himself.

"Jack?" she repeats.

"I'd like to marry you," he tells her.

"I'd like to marry you, too, Jack," she answers gravely.

He takes the ring out of the box. Takes her hand. Puts the ring on the proper finger. She knows what the right finger is but not -- until now -- what a ring feels like on her hand. She's never worn rings. She's sure it fits properly, though; the SGC has all her physical dimensions; they could build an exact copy of her from what they have in their files, or go clothes shopping for her.

Or ring shopping.

The ring makes her hand look like someone else's. It is a promise of marriage. A marquise diamond in yellow gold, and the chance to spend the rest of her life explaining that she is Doctor Mrs.-General Jackson-O'Neill, no, not a medical doctor, and giving the military protocol department fits wherever they send him.

She allows herself the fantasy of that much future.

#

Half an hour later she goes home to change. They're going out to dinner, and Jack said to wear something nice. They're going to celebrate, just the two of them. Sammy's offworld with most of SG-1, Teal'c's on Chulak. They'll tell them as soon as they can. She walks into her apartment, mentally considering her wardrobe. She actually owns several dresses now.

"Hey, Dani."

She shrieks, spinning around and yanking her door open again, poised to run before the sound of his voice sinks in. It's Daniel. He's standing by the balcony, wearing a plaid shirt -- one of her favorites -- and jeans.

"Oh. God. Daniel." Daniel came to her when the NID kidnapped her. The memory finally falls into place. It wasn't a dream. Daniel is Ascended. This is the week he was missing on The Other Side. Missing, presumed Ascended. All 'where's' are the same to the Ascended. They transcend time and space and dimension.

And he's come here.

"Look, I don't have much time. Anubis is coming to Earth with a fleet. He's made an alliance with the Replicators, with Replicator Sam--"

 _I know._ She's always somehow known this was how it was going to end. "Coming here? _Here_ -here?"

"Yes, he's coming here," Daniel repeats patiently. "He knows you have the missing piece of the Eye of Ra, and he wants that, but he wants Earth even more, so destroying the Eye now isn't going to help you. He can't use the Dakara Device to remake the universe now, but that isn't going to matter a whole lot, either."

"But Earth is a Protected Planet--"

"I don't think Anubis cares a lot about the _Goa'uld_ /Asgard Treaty. The Asgard aren't in a position to stop him -- not with Replicators in their own galaxy -- and he knows it."

"When?" _When will he be here?_

"Soon. I'm not sure. I think you probably have two months, maybe three at the outside."

It might be enough advance warning to save them. They've got a pretty impressive space fleet now. She knows it won't be, but she has to hope. "Daniel, aren't you supposed to ... not meddle?" _Daniel, I miss you. Daniel, Jack's asked me to marry him and I've said 'yes.'_ He's Ascended. He probably already knows.

He smiles. "It doesn't matter now. I'm going back anyway." And when he does, he'll forget this ever happened, so he can't warn her before she comes home. Temporal Causality will be preserved. For a moment he looks as if he might say something else. "Do your best," he says instead.

"We will."

He's gone in a shimmer of light. Going home.

She takes a deep breath and picks up the phone to call Jack. Sets it down. She can't say these things over an unsecured line.

#

When Jack sees her drive back in the same clothes she left in, she knows he can tell something's wrong. He meets her on the doorstep, takes one look at her face, and puts his arms around her.

"You remember Daniel?" she says against his chest.

"The guy who's supposed to be you?" he says gently. "Indy, I already knew about Daniel. I told you, you talk in your sleep."

Given what she's come to tell him, it's such a non-sequitur that for a moment she doesn't understand. Then realization sets in, and she cringes inside. She must have called him Daniel, when they... Or something.

They don't have time for this now. She closes her eyes tightly, still holding on to him.

"Right now Daniel's Ascended. He came to my apartment -- just now -- to warn us. Anubis is coming to Earth. He's allied with the Replicator fleet under Evil Robot Sam. They aren't going to fight each other the way they did in the Other Reality. They're going to combine forces to wipe us out. Daniel thinks we might have maybe ninety days before they get here. Probably less."

Jack pushes her gently away so he can study her face. "Are you sure this information is good?" he asks. His voice is all business now.

"Yes. Daniel would know."

"You say he's Ascended 'now.'" She sees Jack frown, trying to work it out.

"When the Replicators attacked Earth in the alternate universe--" last week, actually, by the dual calendar she obsessively keeps "--Evil Robot Sam kidnapped him and killed him. He was dead -- Ascended -- for a week, then he came back. That was about two months before they sent me home."

"And he didn't think to mention to you at the time that we were going to be _invaded_?"

"When he gets back, he won't remember anything from his Ascension." She's covered this in her reports. Daniel's experience is their greatest source of information about the Ascended, since she has no similar ones.

"Why?" Not why doesn't Daniel remember.

"He's my friend, Jack." _No matter what else. No matter what more._

"Let's get back to the Mountain. I'll drive."

#

When she comes stomping back up the steps he's sure she's going to confess about this Daniel guy, and that will just be ... awkward. He already knows, and dammit, only somebody as plain naive as Indiana would imagine he couldn't guess from the first time he'd gotten her into bed that she'd had someone on The Other Side. He pretty much guessed who it had to be, too, even before he had something like proof.

He wonders if she thinks she'd shock him. Fat chance.

He hopes she hasn't confused herself so much she tries to give the ring back. Because, dammit, he intends to marry her even if she's coming to tell him that she's done all of the Other SG-1, and Maybourne into the bargain.

Frankly, he'd rather hear that than what she tells him.

#

Explaining to the Pentagon where the information comes from is hard enough. From an alternate-universe version of Dr. Danielle Jackson who's 'dead' at the moment and therefore possesses temporary godlike powers? The Joint Chiefs refuse to act.

Jack does what he can under the radar. He sends Sammy on an extended visit to the _Tok'ra_. She takes Cassie with her, because... well, _because_. Teal'c's briefed and goes back to Chulak. If Earth falls, he and Sammy will be among the few left able to form a resistance. Jack also goes through the Genesis roster: when he sends warning of their potential -- still potential -- problem to Atlantis, he also sends almost a hundred of Earth's best and brightest. If Earth falls, at least humanity will -- might -- survive.

The Asgard promise to help as much as they can.

Jack wants her to leave too. She knows more addresses off the top of her head than anyone, is familiar with more cultures. She could go, keep moving, come back when it's safe. Even go to Pegasus.

She refuses. Anubis will hunt her down wherever she goes out of spite for her ruining so many of his plans. She isn't quite sure that he won't find her, and her presence -- current or past -- will doom any planet she goes to.

Jack preps a mission to Tollana. They both doubt that the Tollen will help, but she wants to warn them. And the Tollen are in contact with the Nox. She owes them a warning as well. (She's sure Jack wants to talk her into staying with the Nox.) But they can't get a lock on Tollana when they dial. That means the Tollen Gate isn't there any more.

Anubis is playing chess.

When she's in her office these days, she leaves the quantum mirror set to the Other SGC. Alternate reality TV. The Other Reality is easy to find. It's almost the only other SGC left now. Even the Replicators are gone. And the Flat Earth.

Path of Optimal Outcome.

#

Jack's constant nagging of the Joint Chiefs has one useful effect. When Anubis' fleet is detected in the outskirts of the solar system, they finally decide he was right and mobilize immediately. Just as Daniel said, Anubis has the Replicators with him. Their combined fleet destroys everything Earth can throw at it. The F-302s, their fleet of 303s and 304s, the new 305. Slowly. Leisuredly.

In the last several weeks, Jack sent everything and everyone they can spare to the hastily-reactivated Alpha Site, but he can't strip his command of assets that might turn the tide of battle.

Thor sends ships, and for a while they hope. But despite the care they've taken, Evil Robot Sam is still somehow immune to the Asgard Disruptor Wave technology. Evil Robot Sam doesn't drive the Asgard ships off: she eats them alive. Under cover of the fighting, she lands Replicators on Earth. Anubis must know he can't trust her and can't destroy her. Either this alliance is a result of overweening _Goa'uld_ arrogance or he knows something they -- and the Replicators -- don't know.

From the time they sight the combined fleet, to the time Anubis begins annihilating the cities of Earth, the battle lasts seven days.

Anubis is taking his time.

#

Indy's in his office, talking to whatever's left of the U.S. Government. Or the Russians. Or the Chinese. Maybe the Swiss. He's not really sure any more. The planetary government, O'Neill guesses it is by now. They're trying to surrender. She's coaching them on _Goa'uld_ forms. He and she both know it isn't going to work, but they have to try. At this point, it's the only option Earth has left.

He's in her office. He goes to her desk, takes out the locked box. His palmprint will open it. He and Indy are the only two people left who can. General Hammond's dead, and Carter may be. No way to know.

He takes out the controller for the quantum mirror and switches it on. The quantum mirror flares into life. Indy's talked about how it works often enough. He even used it once, a long time ago. He finds the place he's looking for easily. It's her office, but it doesn't look quite the same. Her desk's in the same place, though, and there's a man sitting in her chair. He's staring into the computer screen, hitting himself in the forehead absently with a pen just the way Indy does when she's thinking. It's creepy. This is her Xerox. A male version of Indy.

Frankly, in O'Neill's opinion, his universe got the better deal. But the Xerox's universe is safe. She spent almost three years there, so he knows she won't have any problem going back. Anubis is dead there, so he won't be after her. They'll take care of her. _Daniel_ will take care of her.

Why not the Other Him? Indy never did come up with a really convincing explanation for that one, even when he finally backed her into a corner. Something about because she was a guy there, he'd fallen for Carter.

That'd be the day.

He turns off the mirror, puts the controller away. Enough time wasted. He's got work to do.

#

There's a _hat'ak_ on top of The Mountain.

It's one week after Anubis' ships reached orbit; two weeks after they entered Earth's Solar System; ten weeks after Daniel came to her apartment. She could have been getting married today.

They could have done it quickly. They didn't for morale reasons. (Jack never said, but she knew.) It would have looked too much as if he didn't expect any of them to survive, and if she'd agreed, she would have been agreeing to that, too. So in spare moments she's has planned a wedding she knows none of them will live to celebrate. It's her last gift to him. Her wedding gift.

Anubis wants to take her alive. He offered the rest of the SGC clemency if they'd send her out. She wanted to go, but Jack wouldn't let her. (Anubis was probably lying, anyway, but still.)

Jack and Walter set the self-destruct in the backup Command Post on 19 as she watches -- ten minutes -- and then Jack arms the _naquaadriah_ warhead sitting beside it. If Anubis' Jaffa have Replicators with them, they might be able to get into the computer and stop the autodestruct, but Jack's hoping they can't affect the systems on a stand-alone bomb in time to stop it. The explosion, when it comes -- _if_ it comes -- will vaporize not only the Mountain, but a good portion of Colorado Springs.

The East and West Coasts are ... gone. They haven't heard from the President in three days. They managed to get the Vice President through in the last group to go to the Alpha Site before they had to slag the Gate Room. Anubis dialed in to their Stargate when he reached Earth orbit. No matter what they tried, they weren't fast enough to dial out again, so they slagged the Gate Room, welding the iris in place. They're all trapped on Earth -- but if Anubis wants to use their Gate, he's going to have to work for it.

Jack looks up at her as the counter begins to run. He smiles just for her before turning to the others. "Fall back, boys and girls, nothing more to see here. Indiana! Time to go!"

"Go _where_?" _And no, by the way._

Airmen and soldiers run through the halls heading for their final positions. They'll all be dead in less than ten minutes. Their last duty is to keep the enemy from reaching the bomb that's going to kill them all. Jack grabs her arm, hustling her into the corridor. He's dragging her back to her office for some reason. Eighteen's still secure, but Anubis's Jaffa have already taken the upper levels. She's supposed to go down to 25.

He pulls her inside. They're the only ones here -- 18's been a ghost town for weeks; they sent all non-essential personnel home -- or to Atlantis -- before Lockdown. She glances toward the quantum mirror. This time she left it on; it hardly matters now. Daniel's at his desk, working. He was gone for a long time, but he's been in and out for the last month. It's peaceful in the Other Reality today. The Critical Path. The one where they did everything right. The one that survives.

Suddenly she realizes what Jack's thinking. "No, Jack -- _no!_ " She grabs his shirt.

"You're not staying here. He's not going to make you into a host, if ... something goes wrong. And he isn't getting this, either. Take it with you." He hands her the Eye of Ra.

"He plans to use the superweapon against the Replicators. That's why he made the alliance with them," she says. It all makes sense now. She clutches the ruby disk tightly. She can't throw it through. She's tried throwing things through before. Sammy's theory is that only the living and what they carry with them will make the dimensional transfer -- assuming you can even go through a single-source mirror at all.

"If Evil Robot Carter finds out he can't take her out, it might buy the others a little time," Jack says.

It won't save Earth. It won't save Jack. But it might save Atlantis, Chulak, the _Tok'ra._

"Jack, _please!_ " He's right, but she can't do it.

He kisses her -- hard -- one kiss for the life they won't have together. And shoves her at the Mirror with all his strength.

#

The first thing Jack did when he and Sam got back from Langara was to have Sam dismantle the jury-rigging on the timeship and send the quantum mirror spinning into Langara's sun. No surprises there. Hey, if there's a chance they might actually _learn_ something from one of the alien artifacts they bring back, the best thing to do with it is blow it up or destroy it, right?

A month ago today he was dragged back from Pegasus. The Furlings are back. The SGC's involved in careful -- very careful -- negotiations on PHX-1138. Daniel spends a lot of time there these days. The Furlings apparently believe it's their duty to uplift younger races. They seem to believe strife and battle encourage evolution and growth. Daniel suspects that the Furlings helped the _Goa'uld_ to evolve.

He feels a growing sense of disenchantment with General Jack O'Neill. He knows why, too, but it's unworkable to be jealous of someone who doesn't actually exist. It isn't this Jack who bothers him. Probably. Kind of.

They should have made her stay.

Sending her report through would have been enough. They could have done that. It was probably all she had time for, anyway -- if she even managed that much. After all of Jack's posturing over the last two and a half years, in the end, he _did_ send her back to die. She didn't want to go. Not enough to actually ... go. They could have talked her out of it.

 _Jack_ could have talked her out of it.

Sam tried to warn him, years ago. Dani loved Jack, back on the Other Side. She was _in love_ with Jack. But it was _him_ she turned to here, not Jack. _Second best?_ he wonders sourly, and knows he wasn't. They were both just survivors, outcasts, in a world that has never seemed like home. (Of course, she might say she had more reason at the time to feel that way than he did, but he can't ask her now.) They had a lot more in common than she and Jack ever could.

"I give the relationship a month," he says aloud. He tries to imagine it, and simply can't. Jack won't even let him finish his sentences half the time. He'd -- he'll -- drive her crazy. Already has, if she survived, because her reality runs two years behind his.

If she survived.

She had nine minutes and 45 seconds to get to the Gate and go through before the explosion. Plenty of time for her to get there and dial home. It doesn't matter, though, unless it was enough time for the rest of them to get there. Because she wouldn't leave without Jack, and Jack wouldn't leave without the rest of his team. Not without knowing _why_ it was so important, at least. (He wasn't -- isn't -- an idiot). But Dani wouldn't have had time to explain. So she's probably dead. Years ago, in her reality. Weeks ago in his.

There's a loud thump in the corner; a startled cry. He gets up quickly, peering into the dim corner of his office, but all the lights are off except the one over his desk and he sees nothing until something bright comes skittering across the floor. He picks it up. It's the Eye of Ra. But the Eye of Ra is _gone._

There's something moving in the corner. He strides to the panic button by the door and hits it. SFs will be here in seconds.

Just then Dani walks out into the light. Her hair is longer than it was the last time he saw her. Her glasses are different. She's wearing civilian clothes and a lab coat, not BDU's. But she's looking at him with recognition: it's her -- the one he knows -- and not another ... _echo_. She got back to her own SGC alive after all.

From the expression on her face, things haven't been going well since.

"So. Daniel?" Her tone is desperately casual.

"Um, how have you been?"

"About the same. Got engaged. Earth was destroyed by Anubis and the Replicators."

Her voice is so matter-of-fact that it takes several seconds for the sense of her words to penetrate. _"What?"_

The SFs slam open his office door. Light floods the room. Guns are everywhere. They look at Daniel and the woman they know as Dr. Ballard, waiting for an explanation.

"It's okay, guys. False alarm. Really," he says. "Um, we need to see the General. You can search the room if you like. Just don't ... touch anything."

#

He's leaving next week for Washington. Carter will be in Washington a week later, on leave. She welcomes the chance to catch up with old friends at the Pentagon, she tells him.

The hardest part about the transfer was finding someone to take over here. Hank Landry's a good man. Jack chose him himself. He's sure the kids will break him in gently. Actually, he's sure of no such thing, but he's sure the SGC will survive anyway.

"Dr. Jackson and Dr. Ballard to see you, sir," Walter says, opening the door.

"Send him in. _What did you say_?" But Daniel and Dani are already walking into his office. He motions them to sit and waves for Walter to close the door. What's she doing ... _back_ ... here? He wonders if he should call Carter now, or wait.

Dani takes off her glasses -- new glasses -- to rub her eyes. He sees the glint of a diamond on her left hand. He wonders if she ever had that talk with her world's Jack O'Neill. She glances down at her watch and winces.

"General O'Neill," she says quietly. "Jack. I apologize for dropping in like this."

Daniel leans forward and sets the Eye of Ra in the middle of his desk. O'Neill looks from something that shouldn't be here to something else that shouldn't be here.

"The ... short ... explanation?" he asks. He makes his voice as gentle as he can, but he really hopes her arrival isn't one of those harbingers of impending doom. The Furlings are enough for Hank to have to deal with on his shakedown cruise.

Dani blinks, and rubs her eyes again. "It's been almost five years." She pauses. "I came through our quantum mirror. You don't need one on the destination side if you have the proper setting. You just need to reflect..." She looks at her watch again. "That won't be a problem for you. It's gone now."

'Gone.' As in 'my whole world is gone now.' He sees her take a deep breath.

"Anubis somehow knew we had a kind of foreknowledge of events. I used what I'd learned here -- it was our future -- there. We avoided some--" She stops, and doesn't look as if she's going to start talking again any time soon.

"Really big mistakes?" O'Neill supplies helpfully.

She nods. "But he allied with the Replicators and attacked Earth once he'd consolidated -- or destroyed -- _Goa'uld_ forces elsewhere. We had warning, but Jack couldn't get the Chiefs to take it seriously, and they'd stripped our budget after the System Lords fell. We called in the Asgard, set up some offplanet resistance cells. The Replicators destroyed Thor's fleet. We ... lost." Another long pause. "Jack thought -- _we_ thought -- Anubis was going to use the Eye of Ra to complete his superweapon to destroy the Replicators once they'd helped him conquer Earth. If he can't ... it might buy the Resistance some time," she finishes in a low voice.

"So he sent it here," Daniel says.

"Someone had to bring it. Only living things can pass through the quantum mirror. Sammy and I have... We had. We had been studying it."

"You had warning," O'Neill says. Something about this isn't right. Why wouldn't the Joint Chiefs take something like that seriously? It wasn't as if they haven't been attacked on their home ground before.

"Daniel told me," she says. "But... And we couldn't get hard intelligence independent confirmation."

"Wait. What? _I_ told you? Jack, I didn't--" Daniel sounds shocked and -- oddly -- indignant.

"You were dead at the time." Her voice is tired, but she smiles as if it's an old joke. "Jack had to give up his source for the information. It didn't go over well."

"Ya think?" O'Neill mutters under his breath.

She shakes her head wearily. "There's not much more to tell. Your universe is the Critical Path. Mine was just a ... sub-optimal outcome." Her breath catches; she steels herself with an effort. "I'm sorry," she says again. "I didn't ask if I could stay."

He can tell she's holding herself together with an effort. This is worse -- much worse -- than when she came back from PHX-1138. This time she hasn't just lost her team.

"Actually I hadn't really gotten around to telling anybody you'd left. Paperwork. Goes on forever. Why don't you head on down to the infirmary and get checked back in? Daniel, go with her."

She gets to her feet, moving carefully. Pain. Exhaustion. Automatically, Daniel puts an arm around her to steady her.

 _Welcome home, Dr. Ballard._

#

Daniel recognizes the symptoms of shock. He steadies her as she walks. He realizes that what he feels most is anger, and he's faintly surprised. _Why couldn't you let her die in her own world, Jack? You always have to win, don't you?_

Unfair, he supposes. And speaking ill of the dead. But getting the Eye of Ra out of the way was just an excuse. They could have destroyed it there. But destroying it hadn't been the real point, had it? They'd had plenty of time to think of other ways. They'd had warning Anubis was coming.

Why had _he_ warned her? Why had Anubis been stopped here and not there? Something to do with him?

They reach the Infirmary. "Dr. ... Ballard?" Dr. Brightman says in surprise. Sally Brightman is one of the people who knows Dani's his quantum double, but she hadn't known Dani was supposed to be gone forever. Jack had classified that at some insanely top secret level. To the rest of the SGC, Dr. Dana Ballard was just off on some long-term mission. Eventually, Daniel supposes, she would have been declared 'Missing In Action.'

Dani doesn't say anything.

"Yeah," he says for her. "She's ... back."

"Well," Dr. Brightman says, all brisk professionalism. "Let's have a look at you. Anything unusual happen while you were offworld?"

It's a standard question. Dani shakes her head. It's obvious it's starting to sink in now. That she's here. What Jack's done to her. And Daniel can tell she's so tired -- or stunned -- she can barely think straight.

"Pretty ...normal," she manages to say.

Dr. Brightman leads her away.

#

"Dr. Jackson, do you know where Dr. Ballard was?"

It's twenty minutes later. Dr. Brightman is back. She looks professionally worried. He sighs. "Some place they were fighting a war. And lost."

"She went home, didn't she?" Brightman says.

Daniel nods. What's Jack going to do, fire him?

"Why don't you go sit with her? I'm going to go talk to the General."

Daniel goes in to the exam area. Dani's sitting on one of the beds, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at nothing. (He knows that look. He's seen it in the mirror.) He sits down beside her.

"You know," she says, in tones that are almost conversational, "we went to so much trouble to keep my-- To keep my-- And you know? In the end we blew up-- It's-- We put a _naquaadriah_ bomb in the SGC even bigger than the one they had on Kelowna."

"Dani, don't," he says.

"The Furlings never came, you know," she adds, still in that far-too-calm voice. "I went back to stop them and they never came after all."

He puts his arms around her. Her muscles are rigid.

"We couldn't hold Dakara. We didn't even try. We went in and blew up the Ancients' machine from orbit. We never even tried to use it. The _Tok'ra_ helped us. I saved Egeria for them. They owed us. I changed the future, but I did it all wrong."

"You did your best." He does not doubt that.

"You told me to. You came to my apartment and told me Anubis and the Replicators were coming. You scared me to death."

"I'm sorry," he says. What else can he say?

"It's always nice to see you again, Daniel," she says gravely, the conventionality of the politeness teetering on the brink of hysteria. After a moment she continues talking, her voice still eerily level. "When we figured out how to ... disconnect ... the quantum mirror from its copies, I would watch this universe. The mirror was in my office, so that was all I could see. That and the corridor. Your universe got easier to find, over time. All the other variations kept going dark. After a while I realized that meant they weren't there any more. Only the Critical Path is stable."

He's barely listening. He remembers more of his second Ascension than he's ever told anyone, but he doesn't remember visiting Dani. Warning her. He remembers sitting in a diner that couldn't possibly exist, he remembers Anubis, he remembers seeing Oma Desala attack Anubis in an eternal checkmate, he remembers...

Nothing else.

Do the Ascended span time and space and quantum variation? He realizes he'd unconsciously assumed they did, but there was still an Anubis in Dani's world. An Anubis with Ascended foreknowledge. Even if he couldn't get his hands on the Dakara Device, he'd still be able to destroy Earth. Nothing they had could have stopped him. Would it be better to know, or not?

 _It would be better to know._ And for just one reason: enough advance warning would give Jack time to think of sending Dani back here. _Was that why I did it?_

Why would he want to make that happen?

He sits with her in silence until Dr. Brightman returns. Apparently their CMO hasn't enjoyed her chat with the good General.

"I do prefer it when my patients are more forthcoming with me," she says tartly. Dani raises her head and regards the doctor with polite, slightly worried, interest.

"Can't you see she's in shock?" Daniel says. If Dr. Brightman spoke to Jack, surely she's figured that out.

"I'm not in shock," Dani says irritably. "They're dead. They keep dying. But they're not going to die any more, because I really think the matter has been settled for good this time. I just want to go--" She clamps her teeth shut hard on the last word, but it isn't hard for Daniel to guess. _Home._ Wherever that is, now.

"The General said to send you home," Dr. Brightman says. "I don't want to do it, but I will ... if you humor me, and let me do a full physical workup first. Dr. Ballard, you look like hell."

"Been there," Dani says, obviously making an effort not to start giggling. Or worse. Dr. Brightman gives Daniel a no-nonsense look. His presence is not required.

"I'll be back," Daniel tells her, getting up.

#

Dr. Brightman gives her, if not a clean bill of health, then one that will let her leave the Mountain. She pumps Dani full of vitamins; no one has been eating well lately where she's just come from. The massive dose of B compounds make her sleepy.

Dr. Brightman also gave her pills. They both know she'll have trouble sleeping. This is a false calm. It will shatter. It's not as if -- especially after the last seven years -- she's a stranger to Post Traumatic Stress.

When Daniel returns, he's already wearing civilian clothes. She thinks longingly of a shower -- since The Mountain went into lockdown on The Other Side, they've had to conserve fresh water; it's been a long time since she's been able to do anything but sponge down. Too bad she didn't pack an overnight bag for this trip.

He's brought her purse. She left it on _Daedalus._ She doesn't ask why he still has it, or has it here. The earrings Sam gave her for her last birthday are in the purse, neatly sealed into a plastic bag. So are all her Dana Ballard ID. She's Dana Ballard again. Forever, now. In the only reality there is.

It's mid-afternoon when they reach the surface, which she finds disorienting. It seems as if it ought to be night. The last time she saw the surface, it was Spring: here, five weeks after she left, it's late autumn, and she doesn't have a coat. Her teeth are chattering by the time they get to the Jeep. Daniel takes off his jacket and wraps it around her before they get in.

She really doesn't pay much attention to where they're going. It's a shock when Daniel pulls up in his own driveway. She wasn't expecting that, but she's wise enough to know she's not thinking clearly.

"I don't expect to just--" But of course her apartment is gone.

"Where did you think Jack was sending you?" Daniel asks.

In her mind, it becomes an entirely different question. "I didn't ask if I--"

"Well, you can. C'mon."

They go inside.

#

"Coffee?" he asks. There's still a bottle of Scotch here, too, left from her last visit. Visit. She spent as much time here as at her own apartment -- more -- by the end.

He's still trying to get used to the idea that he went to visit Dani while he was Ascended. Actually, from the timing, she got home right when he'd Ascended for the first time, and since apparently the Ascended can cross universes, he might very well have spent a lot of time being Ascended in the universe next door (assuming he'd thought of it). Just as she apparently spent a lot of time watching the universe she'd left behind through the quantum mirror.

She smiles wistfully. "Haven't had that in a while."

She sits down on the couch. By the time he comes out of the kitchen again, she's asleep. She's kicked off her shoes, and her glasses are nowhere in evidence, but she's still wearing his jacket. He takes the mugs back into the kitchen and goes to get a blanket to cover her. There are a lot of things he could be doing right now. Instead, he sits down in a chair to watch her sleep.

He's never been easy to get along with (at least for his friends; strangers don't know him at all). There are weeks he's been accused of being cold-blooded and soft-hearted in the same ninety minute period. He should be sympathizing with Dani's loss. Instead, he's thinking about the Furlings.

They're going to have to tell her they're talking to the Furlings. Mostly, spending a lot of time saying 'no' to the Furlings in the politest, most convoluted way possible. Things are pretty quiet in the galaxy right now, and it would be nice if they stayed that way. He worries constantly that the Furlings are managing to slip something by him and SG-9, despite everything. Dani would be better at negotiating with the Furlings than he is, he's pretty sure about that. If she can bring herself to do it. Because (everything's related) now it looks as if the stakes are even higher than everyone thought. Dani says they never came back to her reality at all. But back in the Gate Room, almost three years ago now, the Furling said it was leaving to 'bring gifts' to General Hammond at the Other SGC. That was why she'd been so desperate to get home in the first place.

One of the reasons.

So why didn't it?

They don't lie. At least, they haven't lied yet, so far as Charlie and Steve can tell. Maybe that's the biggest lie of all.

Is the Furling intervention why her universe is gone? He and Jack and Sam sent Dani back to play out a game against Anubis she had no hope of winning. And Anubis conquered -- destroyed -- her Earth. But without the Dakara Device he can't destroy her galaxy. And Dani said she'd saved Egeria. So now the _Tok'ra_ will increase in numbers, be a real threat to the _Goa'uld_ for the first time in almost two millennia.

Was that what the Furlings wanted to accomplish? Not much point to it if Anubis killed as many of the _Goa'uld_ there as he did here.

Dani stirs in her sleep, throws up a hand to cover her face, then settles again. The ring on her finger flashes. Daniel abandons the Furling problem until a time when he can actually do something about it. Engaged, but not married. To Jack, obviously. He wonders when that happened. The ... logistics of it. Because he can't see either of them leaving SG-1, frankly.

He's sure she'll tell him if he asks. They have no secrets from each other. Nevertheless, it's a relationship he finds weirdly inconceivable.

#

His phone rings a couple of hours later. He digs it out of his pocket quickly and takes it into the kitchen.

"Hi?"

"Daniel? She's back?" It's Sam.

"Yeah, she's right here. Asleep, actually." But Dani's followed him into the kitchen. She looks rumpled, pushing her hair back out of her eyes, peering myopically at a world seen without glasses. Her hair is longer than it was before she cut it to go back to The Other Side. Weeks for him. Years for her. _How many?_ he wonders.

He'd still be in Pegasus if the Furlings hadn't come.

"What happened?" Sam asks.

"It's really kind of a long story," Daniel says. And something that can't be discussed over an open line, since he's really terrible at talking in code, just to begin with.

 _Sam?_ Dani mouths at him. Her glasses were in his jacket pocket, apparently. She's put them on. He nods, points from the phone to the kitchen, looks inquiring. She nods back.

"So why don't you come by? You can talk to her yourself," Daniel says.

#

"It will be good to see Sam again," Dani says. The Other Sammy. The only one, now. Jack-here is General, but she knows that doesn't make a difference for him and Sam. She's sorry for that.

"Well, she'll be glad to see you, too. Your, ah, timing was good; she'll be going on leave soon, and then she's got a temporary reassignment."

Dani flinches. 'Temporary reassignments' in her world have meant years of bleeding resources out of the Stargate Program. 'Temporary reassignments' never return.

"Probably to help Jack settle in -- in Washington -- is my guess. You know, I honestly can't imagine Jack O'Neill being any good at cocktail-party diplomacy."

"He's leaving?" It's enough to bring her all the way awake.

"They're making him head of Homeworld Security, now that General Hammond's finally retiring. The handover's Friday. He leaves next week."

Homeworld Security is a Cabinet-level post. She suspects the Powers That Be may have just promoted Jack O'Neill to his level of incompetence. She really can't imagine Jack (Jack-here, Jack-only) doing General Hammond's job. She shakes her head in wonderment. Jack is leaving the Stargate Program? It's something almost impossible to imagine.

"We're getting someone named Landry. Jack's been briefing him for the last week or so. There's a lot to explain."

The name isn't familiar. She looks at Daniel. _She's_ going to be one of the things Jack needs to explain to General Landry. Maybe she should just retire, too. She doesn't feel the faintest desire to ever go through the Gate again. She's not sure what she'll do with the rest of her life, and right now she doesn't care.

#

He caught Sam on the way out of the Mountain, asked her to pick up take-out. He's been gone so much lately there really isn't any food here. "I barely got out of there," she says, handing him the bags of Indian food. "General O'Neill is briefing General Landry about the F--"

He catches her eye, shakes his head slightly. Dani is in the living room, watching the fish as if they were the most fascinating television program on Earth. "Not yet," he says quietly. "She's back because Anubis took The Mountain there. Jack sent her here." He really doesn't need to fill in the blanks.

"This isn't a good time. I should go," Sam says, but Dani's heard the conversation at the door.

"Sam!" she says, hugging Sam hard. "I've missed you. Hey, Indian."

She's made the ring disappear, Daniel notes.

Over dinner they talk shop, of course. The quantum mirror is a -- reasonably -- safe and neutral subject, as is Dani's safe arrival on Kelowna years -- for her -- before. She sketches in her arrival, the details of settling in. She's been gone almost five years, Daniel discovers. She's older than he is now.

"Finding our quantum mirror right where you'd left yours was the first thing that convinced General Hammond I might have brought back valuable information. We had it shipped back to the SGC, and after a while, I got him to let Sammy and me study it. Eventually she couldn't get anything more out of it, and I moved it down to my office. That's how I ended up back here. Through the mirror." Without, of course, going into _why_ she's here.

"I just don't understand how you managed to use it," Sam says at last. "The mirrors _should_ only transfer between copies."

"Sammy theorized that you could go anywhere you could see. Of course we never tested it, because without a mirror at your destination, you'd be stranded. As for how we unhooked it from the network, well, just like you, we could only see other mirrors at first. Then I flipped the switch on the side, and we could see a lot more places, but only reflections of where our mirror was."

 _"'The switch on the side?'"_ Sam says weakly.

Both of them have to smile at that.

"It was really small," Dani says. "I didn't find it at first. I thought it might just open the casing. But ... it didn't. Maybe you can check...?"

Sam shakes her head, looking anguished at the lost opportunity. "We destroyed the controller, too." She leaves soon after that, promising to see Dani again soon.

"Well, that was ... tactful," Dani says. But her eyelids are heavy and she's having trouble staying awake. It's pretty obvious why Sam left.

"They're really running her around with the changeover, and she's trying to get everything done before she goes on leave. But she did want to see you."

"At least partly to make sure her theory had worked out in the first place," Dani says, stifling a yawn. "And now I've given her a whole collection of theories about the mirrors that she'll never be able to test, let alone prove. Of course," she says after a pause, "some things are better left alone."

There's no answer to that; he doesn't try. He'll have the whole story eventually -- he knows there's more to it than 'Anubis-and-the-Replicators-destroyed-my-planet' -- but it takes perspective to tell a comprehensible story, and right now she doesn't have it.

"Look, I probably won't be here when you wake up, and I might not be back tomorrow night. I'm going offworld. Will you be okay here?"

"Nobody's shooting at me here, Daniel," she points out gravely.

#

She follows him down the hall to the guestroom. The guestroom has always been a sort of overflow office plus a daybed. Computer in the corner, bookshelves everywhere, plus a growing collection of artifacts that just won't fit anywhere else -- only worthy of a second-rate museum, true, but genuinely old, and lovely. Now it's crammed to the ceiling with cardboard cartons as well. An elegant compromise nonetheless; they're on different terms right now. And if he's going offworld tomorrow, he needs his rest. She thinks the shakes and the tears will start soon; it's beginning to really sink in that this is forever, and that if she is to hope for anything at all, it is that Jack has died instantly. Were the Furlings done with them? She wonders what it feels like when the universe you're living in folds in on itself and vanishes. Do you notice at all?

"I, um closed out your apartment when I got back from Atlantis. But I haven't had time to get rid of most of the stuff yet." The tone of Daniel's voice is halfway between triumphant and embarrassed.

"Good thing," she says. At least she won't have to go shopping again.

He says goodnight. She goes to shower -- remembering belatedly how long it's been -- then comes back and lies in bed for an hour -- with the lights on; there's too much _possibility_ in the dark -- before she gives up. She can't sleep. She's afraid to take the pills, for fear they'll trap her in a nightmare from which she cannot awaken.

Jack.

Sense-memory is the strongest. She knows the smell of his skin, the weight of his body, the sound and rhythm of his voice, independent of words. The taste of him.

And it is all gone.

 _You can go home,_ Dr. Brightman said.

 _Where did you think Jack was sending you?_ Daniel asked.

It has been seven years since she went to Kelowna the first time--

 _\--and Jack died--_

\--five years since she returned there to summon him -- all of them -- back from the dead.

And now he is dead again. Sammy, Teal'c... they're all dead, and nothing has ever hurt this much, not Sha're's death, not Skarra's captivity, not his murder. She's lost her lover. They should have had forever, not just the rest of his life.

 _Gone, dead, gone, lost,_ the words circle in her mind, bludgeoning her, and the worst is, she can't be sure of how he died, or -- precisely -- when. Or if everything went hideously wrong and Anubis has him now. She thinks not. She hopes not. She'll never know. _Gone, dead, gone, lost,_ and this time it is final, past hope, past prayer, past science.

Jack is dead.

She can't even cry for him. Because -- and she'd rather die than think this, but she can't stop the words that form themselves in her head -- it's as much as a relief as a shock. She's known for years that this was how the world would end.

She'd just never expected to survive it.

She wishes she believed in gods or ghosts or angels that would give all of this some _point._ Sammy did. Sam does. Get Sam drunk enough, Dani knows, and Sam would tell her she's survived the death of her universe for some unknowable reason. Dani's sure of that. It's what people tell themselves and each other to keep from going mad. Maybe she's actually, finally, gone mad this time. Because the stunning and utter pointlessness of the series of losses that comprise her life leave her feeling as if each breath she takes is killing her.

He's dead.

She gives up and gets out of bed. The need for sleep, for rest, has passed beyond mere exhaustion is and well into pain, but it's simply not possible now. She must find something to do, but does not want to wake Daniel by moving around the house.

She regards the looming block of boxes. She's already counted them several times. There are twenty in an even stack, with three in front of them. Twenty-three. There may be one, or even two, more layers behind. Fairly small cartons. (Still, she didn't realize she had that much _stuff._ ) But it's _her_ stuff, so nobody should object to her going through it. She kneels down in front of the first box and opens it. The top isn't taped, just folded.

It quickly becomes apparent that there's no method to this packing. If packing is language -- and in her experience, nearly everything is -- this is the tongueless howls of a madman. Nothing has been folded, nothing organized. When she gets to the fourth box, she stops and begins to sort, fold, and repack.

Underwear, socks, and brassieres. T-shirts and sweaters. Jeans and khakis. She uncrumples the dresses, the shirts and suits and coats as best she can, and lays them on the bed. She'll look for hangars later.

Shoes. She reassembles most of the pairs, but never does find half of one of set of sneakers, or a pair of sandals she thinks she owned.

Gloves, scarves, hats.

Her spare glasses are smashed. They're at the bottom of a box which also contains bronze bookends and one of the bedside lamps, as well as both of her clocks. The lamp and one of the clocks hasn't fared much better. She sets aside a box for broken things.

The bathroom stuff is salvageable -- fortunately none of it leaked, though it was packed with no more care than anything else -- but why it was packed at all instead of being thrown out is a mystery to her.

Towels and bedding, clean and dirty stuffed in together. She sets them aside, starting a pile of things that need washing.

Living room. One throw-pillow has been packed, but not its mate. A pile of professional magazines. A coffee cup, which is broken.

Books.

A mirror frame, but no mirror.

Pictures. Her and Sam, her and Daniel, Teal'c in a ski hat, even one of Jack--

 _oh god Jack but it's not her Jack_

\--who looks shy and uncomfortable, even in sunglasses. She would have taken them back with her if she could have figured out how. In contrast to everything else she's seen here, they're carefully wrapped in paper towels.

The last several boxes contain kitchenwares. She feels a pang of relief that her garbage and the contents of her refrigerator haven't been packed, but the coffeemaker's been broken and so have most of the few dishes she possessed. Her flatware's survived, and she fishes it out from among the shards, counting pieces. It's all there.

There are a number of staples and canned goods mixed into the wreckage -- coffee, sugar, canned milk, raisins, peanut butter. She makes a note to add them to Daniel's larder. At least she won't starve while he's gone.

By now the wall of boxes -- there were forty in all; there was a back row containing seventeen, for some mysterious reason -- has been completely dismantled to form different ramparts around the daybed. She shifts a few more and unblocks the closet, which is empty save for propagating hangers. She hangs up her suits, her coats, the two or three dresses she owned here. She'll need to get the blue suit cleaned in time for the handoff at the SGC -- if she attends -- or she'll have nothing to wear.

It must be at least 6:30 by now; even in October the sky is light. She thinks she can sleep now. She climbs into bed and turns out the light.

#

Morning. Up, shave, coffee, drive to the Mountain. After so many years it's automatic, which is just as well. He isn't a morning person.

He hopes she'll be all right. They both tend to withdraw when they're hurt. But they need her on PHX-1138. The Furlings keep _offering_ them things, and he has no idea if General Landry will be as willing as Jack has been to just say 'no.'

It would be really nice if they'd just go away, go back to being one of those sublimely aloof Elder Races you hear so much about, but they're being ... insistent. Even though they -- the SGC -- _cheated_ in solving its end of the riddle. They were supposed to send Dani to the proper time, the proper place, and where she belonged. Had they done that? Was it one place, or two? They hadn't solved the riddle, anyway. They hadn't _solved_ anything. They'd just sent her where she wanted to go in the first place, but that hardly matters now. The Furlings are here, and they want to give Earth the same Free Gifts that Dani was willing to die to keep them from giving to _her_ world. Neither he nor Steve and Charlie can figure out how to get them to stop, or how to open up a conventional -- and therefore safer -- trading arrangement with them, though he can't imagine what Earth really has to offer super-powerful godlike aliens.

And sooner or later someone from Higher Up is going to insist that they stop stalling and simply take what is being so freely offered.

#

When he briefs that morning before going through, General Landry's at the table as well. Daniel tries not to resent the upcoming change of command, even though he has a sinking feeling Landry's going to get them all killed. The man's just too damned cheerful about everything.

In the briefing, they watch the latest tapes from PHX-1138. As always, the Furlings cannot be seen. Steve and Charlie -- Colonel Steven Hopewell and Major (Dr.) Charles Saunders, SG-9 -- look harassed. It's more of the same. Round and round and round. _We bring you gifts. We want to pay. We will accept no payment. Then we want to give you gifts in return. Let us give you our gifts first. Wouldn't you like to have a trade agreement instead?_ It's as unchanging as Chinese Opera.

"I'm not sure I see what the problem is with accepting a little gift from these folks," General Landry says. "First one's always free, right?"

Daniel closes his eyes briefly. "General, if we _accept_ anything at all from these ...people... we're going to be in serious trouble. From all we know, their culture has strict rules. _Everything_ has to be paid for."

"How's Dana?" Jack says, seemingly at random. Jack never does anything at random. It took Daniel years to learn that.

"She's been better," Daniel says. "I think she'll adjust." Given time they may not have.

"Dana Ballard," Jack says, for Landry's benefit. "Dr. Dana Ballard. Our resident Furling expert. She's made a lifetime study of the Furlings, you might say."

"Then why isn't she on PHX-1138?" Landry wants to know, reasonably enough.

"Oh, I'm sure she'll be there as soon as she can," Jack says. Jack has mastered the art of the meaningless answer. "Meanwhile, she's taught Daniel here everything she knows."

#

It's about ten-hundred when he goes through. It's about an hour before local noon when he arrives; the time of day at the two locations is nearly identical. It's a little odd, after so many planets where they aren't. It's winter on PHX-1138; the seasons seem to run about three months ahead of Earth, and the year is pretty much the same length. It's chilly and rainy, but not actually cold. Everything is an intense green. He pulls up the hood of his parka against the drizzle -- it's rained every day he's been here -- and heads for the camp. SG-5 is securing the Gate, though what they could actually do against the Furlings is something nobody likes to think about. The MALP, two FREDs and several tents are neatly organized off to one side. Charlie and Steve have been staying off-world. The Furlings offered them accommodations, but so far they've managed to avoid taking them up on that, which is about the only victory they can claim. He goes into the main tent to see them, but only Charlie is there.

"Where's Steve?" he asks, heading toward the coffee pot. The Furlings are nothing if not punctual. They show up every day at local noon and put Steve through the ringer for four hours. Then they leave. They've even created a site for the talks, out where Dani said the ruined city was. It's beautiful. It photographs very clearly.

"He's already there," Charlie says, looking unhappy. "They came early today. I was just about to dial when you got here. They're asking for you."

"Me?" Daniel sets down his cup unfilled. "Come on."

The Furling site is a sketch of a city in ivory and crystal. In the center, there's a pavilion with a round table. Surrounding it are twelve chairs. The symbolism is not lost on Daniel, but he is not certain whether it is for the Furlings' benefit, or theirs. The Furlings always sit together, but they never sit at the same places. Today they are standing. Waiting. He always gets the impression he can see them clearly, until he tries to concentrate on details. Then he realizes he can see nothing at all. It's very similar to many of the accounts of UFO contactees, actually.

They might have known he was coming. He's sat in on the talks many times. It doesn't seem to bother them. Steve is the negotiator. He and Charlie advise. He thinks the male of the pair is the one that tried to take Dani from the Gate Room, but he isn't sure. He can't see their faces.

Steve greets his arrival with relief. "Here is Dr. Daniel Jackson, as you requested."

"No," Coyote says. "We do not request Dr. Daniel Jackson. We welcome his presence, but we do not request him."

Steve looks blank.

"We require the presence of Dr. Danielle Jackson," Raven says happily. "We require you to produce Dr. Danielle Jackson."

Daniel. Danielle. The names would sound similar enough. Especially if you had no idea that there was a Dr. _Danielle_ Jackson to require or produce. How can they know she's here? Super-powerful aliens, right? Super-powerful alien _nutcases._

"I am ... pleased ... that you welcome my presence," Daniel says carefully. "And I look forward to speaking with you." It's always fun to talk to crazy people who aren't actively trying to kill you. Or at least interesting.

"But we wish to speak with Dr. Jackson," Raven says. Raven likes to play games with words. This should be good for a couple of hours, while she does her best to drive Steve crazy, since as far as he knows, Dr. Jackson is right here. Daniel knows that Coyote is the one they've got to watch, though.

"And I'm sure that Dr. Jackson is looking forward to speaking with you," Daniel says, perfectly willing to play along.

"Do you think so?" Raven asks, cocking her head.

Uh-oh. Tell them something that isn't, strictly, true, and you lose points (he doesn't want to know what happens if you lose the whole game). "Well, I haven't had a chance to discuss matters with Dr. Jackson yet, actually, but I expect to do so soon." That's true.

"And you will bring Dr. Jackson here, will you not?" Coyote asks.

"If Dr. Jackson were to come to PHX-1138, then I would accompany Dr. Jackson, yes," Daniel says. Conditional future tense. They've been using a lot of that lately on PHX-1138. Both Charlie and Steve are staring at him now as if he's lost his mind.

"We have waited long for the answer to our riddle," Coyote says. "We thought that you would not bring it."

"But now you do bring it. And we shall give you gifts, and rich rewards," Raven says. "We shall crown you kings of the Earth, and give you the stars for a footstool."

The language parallelism is definitely Celtic, as are the motifs, but neither he nor Charlie is sure how much weight to give either of these things. The Furlings aren't a primitive Western European culture, nor are they descended from one. At best, they meddled with the tribes whose descendants became the Celts Somewhere around fifteen thousand years ago.

If Dani's theories are right.

He glances at Steve.

"It is most generous of you to offer us gifts," Steve says. "And we are glad to be given such evidence that you wish us well. Yet I know you will respect what we have said before, and honor our own customs, as befits a race so powerful and wise."

The discussion goes on as usual -- for six hours today instead of four. The Furlings continue to return, over and over, to their new demand. They want to speak to Danielle Jackson.

It ends the way it always does. One moment they're there. The next they aren't. Steve and Charlie both look at him. He throws up his hands. "I'm sorry, guys. I can't. I've got to get back. I think General O'Neill will have new orders for you before tomorrow's session."

Steve sighs. "I hope so. Because I don't think I can take another day of this... _'Danielle'_."

Daniel winces, ever-so-slightly.

#

She wakens several hours later because she thinks someone's calling her name, but she can't identify the voice. She's certain she can hear warning klaxons, but over the last few weeks they've sounded so much of the time that she's learned to sleep through them. She's half out of bed, reaching for her P90, before she realizes where she is.

Daniel's house. The Other Reality. Everything is quiet. Jack is dead.

She puts all the emotions and memories back into their boxes and takes a deep breath. Months will pass and it will become easier, and them someday she won't have to put them away after an unguarded moment because they'll never jump out at all.

The hard-won wisdom just makes her tired.

She puts on her robe. Investigates the house to be sure that Daniel's gone. Then sets about putting things to rights.

She dresses -- in clothes more suitable to the season -- and bags several boxes worth of lovingly -- that is, she decides, the exact word -- packed trash. Breaks down half-a-dozen boxes to be taken away; most of them have flecks of broken glass at the bottom, so they're not suitable for any other use. She adds the former contents of her larder to Daniel's. She washes several loads of sheets and towels, intending to repack the boxes more sensibly. She heats a can of soup.

But by then body and mind together have decided that this charade of normalcy will go on no longer. After the first spoonful, she bolts for the bathroom and gags over the bowl until her empty stomach is twisting itself uselessly into a knot.

Afterward she brushes her teeth, hunts out the pills that Dr. Brightman gave her, and washes two of them down with Scotch.

#

"Jack, we have a problem."

"Only one, Daniel?"

Daniel comes into the office and closes the door. "The Furlings are asking for Dani. Coyote said something about her being the answer to their riddle. They _really_ want to talk to her -- they showed up two hours early and spent most of the session badgering the three of us to produce her immediately. Charlie and Steve still have no idea what's going on. Except, uh, now they're calling me 'Danielle.'"

Jack regards him, eyebrows raised. "I assume changing your name isn't gonna satisfy our friends?"

Daniel shakes his head minutely.

"I hate it when this happens," Jack says to nobody in particular. "Ideas?"

"Well, we could leave PHX-1138, but they'd probably just follow us back here," Daniel says.

Jack waits.

"I told Charlie and Steve you'd have new orders for them before they have to talk to the Furlings tomorrow."

Jack looks at his watch. "Well, then, Daniel, I'd say you've got a little under eighteen hours to come up with a good suggestion."

#

She's asleep on the couch with the television on when he gets home. She didn't answer either his phone or hers, or her pager. The simplest thing to do was go. When he sees the note held down by the empty glass, he thinks for one horrified moment it's a suicide note. He never should have left her alone. But then he reads it. It's only a careful, precise notation of what she took, and when, and what she took it with. In case he came back, he suspects. Nothing life-threatening -- though it explains why she didn't hear the phone. Unfortunately, he needs her awake.

"Dani, this is not a good time," he says aloud, sighing. He pulls back the quilt and realizes she's been going through the storage boxes. Both the quilt and the clothes she's wearing come from there. They're hers. He scoops her up under the armpits and balances her on her feet. Her head lolls limply. No point in trying to make her throw up; she took the pills over three hours ago; they've well and truly entered her bloodstream by now.

"Dani, come on." He balances her in the crook of one arm and smacks her face -- pats it, really -- as hard as he can bring himself to.

She tries. She really does. Her eyelids flutter and her breathing changes, but she can't quite manage to wake up.

Coffee? There's no way he can get her to drink it. A cold shower? He could take her in to the SGC, and Dr. Brightman could give her a shot of something to wake her up.

Only he's not sure she would. Dani's exhausted -- even he can see that -- and he can't exactly _explain_ what's so urgent. For that matter, given Dr. Brightman's assessment, Daniel isn't sure it would be a good idea to have Dani's flirtation with sleeping pills become a part of the official record.

He pulls out his cellphone and calls Jack.

"Walk her," is Jack's succinct advice, so walk they do, up and down and around the house, until Daniel starts to feel like a medieval Inquisitor torturing heretics with days of sleepless motion. When she's taking some of her own weight, they go and walk around the back yard as well; the cold air helps revive her further.

It's still almost an hour before she's tracking well enough to answer simple questions, though. Name. Birthplace. Birthdate. What city this is.

"Daniel?" The sight of him alarms her further awake. She touches him, and finds him solid. He watches as she finds the connections in her memory. She must have seen enough of the Ascended (not just him, once, coming to bring her an apocalyptic wake-up call) to know that you can't touch them, no matter how solid they look when they appear.

He wishes he could remember.

"We need you back at the SGC. Tonight. There's an emergency."

"I just got here," she protests. It's reasonable enough. Her words are still slow and slurred. She sounds drunk, but at least she's awake.

"We need your help. After you went home, the Furlings came. And now they're asking for you."

She stares at him for so long he isn't sure she's heard him. "Shower," she finally says. "Coffee."

When she comes out of the shower, her lips are blue with cold and she's shaking. The coffee is ready. She gulps the first cup down as fast as she can. "Where are they?"

"PHX-1138."

"How long?"

"About a month now. SG-9 and -5 are there."

"How is it going?"

"Not well. They've let us tape everything. They don't show up on film, but we can hear them. They keep trying to offer us gifts, Charlie and Steve keep saying 'no' and trying to set up a trade agreement, nobody's getting anywhere. You're the first thing they've asked for, and at the moment, I think Steve thinks I'm planning to have a sex-change operation."

She makes a faint muffled sound of amusement and pours herself a second cup of coffee. Her eyes look ancient. "And we don't just break off and go home why?"

"Given our history with them, and the fact they walked through the iris twice -- the second time to set up the current series of talks -- we're all pretty sure they'd just follow us home. The second reason is, of course, that given what they're trying to give us, we'd all look like idiots in Washington, and all they'd do is find someone who _would_ negotiate with them."

"On their terms."

Daniel nods.

She rests her head on her forearms and closes her eyes.

"Dani?"

"I need to see those tapes."

#

This is the first time she's signed _in_ to The Mountain in more than six weeks. She and Jack had both been living on-Base long before they went to Lockdown. This is the first time she's signed in to The Mountain as Dr. Dana Ballard in almost five years. She has to check her number against her ID before she can write it down. Her hands are shaking with caffeine overload. Everything has a surreal drug-glazed overlay. No sleep. Weeks of adrenaline edge and death. She flinches whenever she sees someone in the halls, subconsciously expecting it to be a Serpent Guard, or one of Anubis' Jackals. Or Replicators.

She doesn't dare watch the tapes in a darkened room. She'd fall asleep again. Or worse. But she can run them on a computer screen. She works out of Daniel's office. Hers has a new occupant now. Jack has already ordered a new office for her, Daniel tells her, but it won't be available until some time tomorrow. Gradually the tapes claim her full attention. She begins taking notes.

"The High King is at Tara."

The sound of her own voice startles her awake. She must have fallen asleep staring into the computer. She checks her watch. 0430. She stretches and stands. Daniel looks up from the other desk. He's surrounded by piles of reports and transcripts.

"Everything we have indicates that the Furlings are using Late Bronze Age Celtic motifs in this negotiation, right?" she asks.

"Well, they're speaking English," Daniel answers, yawning to wake himself up. "But the city they built seems to be quoting Bronze Age Irish architectural forms. And a lot of the language structure they're using seems to imply those cultural referents. Based on your original work, we've been using that as a guide."

"Because the Irish Fairy Cult is the purest surviving form that we have," Dani continues. "And as much as they behave like anything we know, the Furlings behave like Fairies." She rubs her eyes. Looks around for her coffee cup and drains it, shuddering at the cold bitterness. "When is Jack going to Washington?"

Daniel has to check his watch to be sure of the date. "End of the week. He's going to hate to leave things like this."

"No. It's a good thing. I think I can buy us a break in the negotiations. Not long. Maybe forty days. But it will give us time to think of something else."

#

0600\. She and Daniel are at the table in the Briefing Room with Jack and General Landry. The table is piled with briefing books. One of them is about her. She's right. Landry is no one she knows, and by the end -- endless visits to Washington to help General Hammond shore up the SGC's evaporating budget -- she knew all the major players there, and Washington was Landry's last post. Daniel says that General Landry is supposed to be an old friend of Jack's, too, and she'd known -- or at least known _of_ \-- most of Jack's friends, at least the ones still in the military. So her Jack hadn't known General Landry. Or he hadn't existed. Or he'd died.

No way to know now.

"So you're what the Furlings want, ah, Doctor, ah, Jackson?" General Landry asks. He sounds a little sandbagged. He may take everything else about the Stargate Program in stride, but it isn't every day you meet someone's _doppelganger_ from an alternate universe.

"It would probably be easier if you called me Dr. Ballard, General. But yes, I'm Daniel Jackson's quantum double. The Furlings brought me here almost three years ago. And apparently they want to talk to me now."

"Just 'talk?'" Jack asks.

"I don't know. Obviously we all need time to prepare properly for further discussion with them."

"Which they're not going to give us," Jack points out.

"We think they will," Daniel says. "They've insisted on conducting these talks with constant references to pre-feudal cultural indicators. We think we can use that now. You see, you're going to Tara to serve the High King."

"Am I?" Jack says, eyebrows raised.

"Tara is Washington," Dani says. "The High King is the President."

Jack nods. He knew that.

"They map closely enough that the Furlings should accept the explanation," she adds. "If they don't, they violate the rules of the game they've set up for this negotiation: pretending we're all Bronze Age Celts."

"Since the High King is giving you these great honors, all of your warriors must be recalled for forty days of celebration and feasting," Daniel says firmly.

Jack is wearing his blandest expression.

"Doctors, are you suggesting we should shut down all Gate travel for forty days while the two of you figure out what to do about a bunch of glowing blobs?" General Landry asks.

"Actually," Daniel says, " _Jack_ is going to shut down the program and recall his, ah, warriors. But since the, er, High King is sending another of his Earls to invest this border fort -- which is perfectly reasonable for the time period -- then I suppose..."

That General Landry can do just as he damned pleases.

"We can't tell them anything that isn't strictly true. We just need to have Charlie and Steve tell them Jack is going to Tara to receive honors of the High King," Dani says. "And that it is the custom for warriors to celebrate such an event for forty days. Besides, they can tell them they'll return on the forty-first day. With me."

"Little problem there," Jack says. In forty days it won't be his decision to make, and they all know it.

"They say I have something they want," she says stubbornly. "It's the only advantage we have. Maybe we can figure out how to use it." Play for time. Jack always said that.

Jack. _No don't think about that now you need to be here--_

"Okay, fine," Jack says. "Let's go wake up the good folks on PHX-1138."

#

They're awake, of course -- at least part of SG-5 is. It's approximately an hour and three months later there than it is here, so it's early morning in the middle of winter. Steve stands in front of the MALP's video pickup. It's raining there. His hair glistens with water, but apparently he's so used to it that he doesn't even notice.

"Dana," he says, sounding relieved and pleased.

"Hey, Steve. How's it going?"

He smiles faintly. "All fun all the time in the _Corps Diplomatique Terrestrine_."

Behind her, General Landry makes a faint disapproving noise. Not a big fan of informality, she guesses. She already suspects she isn't going to like him.

"We think we've got something for you. It's not much, but it should allow you to halt negotiations for a few weeks. You're going to have to follow the script exactly. Don't let them pull you off it. You're just the messenger."

Steve nods. It's a role he's played before. She and Daniel brief him quickly. She's worked with Steve frequently, in both universes. She knows he can do this.

"Okay," he says, when they're done. "If they follow the schedule today, they should be at the pavilion in about four hours."

"Good luck," she tells him.

Jack speaks to Colonel Harper next, tells him to pack up the base camp and be ready to come home. He orders SG-5 to establish an outgoing wormhole just before the Furlings are set to appear. That way SG-9 can keep in touch in real time and all of them can run if they have to. Assuming, in both cases, that the Furlings allow it. Packing to return adds credibility to Steve's story. She should have suggested it.

The wormhole folds in.

"Now get some rest," Jack tells her firmly. "And _that_ is an order."

"I've got to be there when they dial in," she tells Daniel, as they leave.

"I'll wake you."

"I'm not going to be able to sleep." That isn't true. She'll sleep. She'll have nightmares, especially here, under Cheyenne Mountain. Nightmares of drowning in _Goa'uld_ larvae while Replicators eat her alive. Nightmares of Anubis. She's never seen him. In her dreams, the jackal-headed god of the ancient Egyptian temples comes to life. He speaks to her, but she never remembers what he's said when she wakes up.

"Just try."

Anubis is dead here. Or at least he ... stopped. After Dakara. Because this is the Critical Path, the universe that survives. But what if he _isn't_ dead? What if -- because she came back -- he starts again, and everyone here dies too?

She starts to shake. But they're almost at A3 quarters by now, and she manages to make it inside.

She reaches up to brush her hair back and knocks her glasses flying because her hand is shaking so hard. She stuffs her fist into her mouth to keep from moaning out loud. Her knees are about to give way, and she takes a step to lean against the wall for support, colliding with Daniel because she simply doesn't see him. He puts his arms around her, holding her up and walking her over to the bed. She's shaking with terror, and knowing it's groundless doesn't help. It's her mind's way of punishing her for pushing too hard.

For weeks. For months. For _years_.

"Irrational terror," she gasps out. "Paranoia, delusional scenarios. Stress artifacts."

"I know," Daniel says. "It's all right."

But how can it be all right when it feels as if she's drowning? She's having a nervous breakdown; how can anything she's come up with be trusted? She's killed Charlie and Steve, she knows she has. No. It's just aftershock. "Oh, I can't," she says, without really understanding what she's saying. "Oh, no, I can't."

Daniel rubs her back, murmuring meaningless soothing phrases. The metallic taste of panic is in her mouth. She can't control her breathing. Her heart is hammering so hard it hurts. There's no danger here. She's faced actual danger, certain death, with more composure. The shame of it is agonizing. She's falling apart. They need her, and she's falling apart.

The Furlings let her come here so she could kill them all.

"Dani? Dani, can you hear me? Look, I'm going to call Dr. Brightman. She'll--"

The thought of Dr. Brightman seeing her like this terrifies her.

"Oh no, oh no please, oh, Daniel, if you love me--" The sense of her words, coming to her a moment after she's uttered them, shocks her to stillness, as if she's been slapped. They never spoke of love. Of course she'd loved him. Loves him. She realizes it with a sense of inevitability. She doesn't know his feelings. She's always been abysmal at guessing. But loving him kept her alive. Here. There.

He came to her there and saved her life.

"I love you, Daniel," she says. She feels, somehow, the truth is important. She hears him take a deep breath, as if she's hurt him. "I'm sorry," she says. Frustratingly, it's possible to cry now. Her eyes well up with tears. "I shouldn't have--"

His voice crosses over hers, answering her previous statement. "Good. Because I'd hate to be out here on this limb all by myself."

She looks up at him; startled, not sure if she's heard him properly -- or if she has, if she's understood him. He presses his forehead against hers; a salute instead of a kiss. It is too soon for that, with Jack barely dead.

 _Please, please, let him be dead._

Jack had known about Daniel, known the one secret she'd kept. And, knowing, had sent her back here, knowing that whatever happened _there_ it was a one-way trip. She leans her head against Daniel's chest, exhausted now that the emotional storm has passed. Makes up her mind to explain all this to Daniel.

And falls asleep.

#

He hears her breathing deepen and slow with a sense of relief bordering on prayer. The fact that she recognizes the symptoms of traumatic emotional shock doesn't make them any easier to deal with. She shouldn't have to do this twice. No one should.

In a sane world she'd have months to recover before anyone even asked her to think about coming back to work. But the world is not sane, or kind, or fair. The Furlings have forced their hand. He only hopes her analysis of the situation is sound -- he thinks it is -- and that they'll gain the respite she hopes for. They'll need it, if they're going to have any hope of figuring out how to lead the negotiations in the direction they need them to go. He only hopes General Landry will be reasonable. Daniel has always distrusted the military, especially when it comes to him in the guise of 'aw shucks just folks.'

She said she loves him. Admitted it as if she's been tricked into betraying a mortifying secret. He supposes, in a way, it is. The man she meant to marry has been dead for less than two days. She could never have expected -- forty-eight hours ago -- to come back here. He wonders about the things she won't have said in front of Sam. The things she might have told _her_ Sam, but probably never told her Jack. Daniel suspects, somehow, that he guessed anyway. He hopes he was all right with it. You have to admit this isn't the most, well, _normal_ possible relationship for either of them. But he's long since stopped thinking of Dani as a copy of himself. She's just Dani, called, in public, Dana, and she's taken a series of coincidences of life history and made herself into something unique, and special.

Or perhaps he's deluding himself. Perhaps they're more identical than he can perceive, and it's their similarities that draw them together. Perhaps each of them is helpless to choose anyone else while it's possible to have ... themselves. Somehow, he just can't bring himself to care. He holds her in his arms as she sleeps, and plans for the future.

#

He's just about to wake her when she stiffens in his arms as convulsively as if she's just been zatted. She thrusts herself away, gasping and staring around at a room that she can't quite see.

"Dani? It's me."

"They're not here, are they? No, nobody's here," she says, answering her own question. "I'm here. Daniel." She takes a deep breath, shaking off what was obviously a nightmare. "'Time is it?"

"Almost eleven. We should get up to the Gate Room." He finds her glasses for her and they go.

Sam's waiting, along with Jack and General Landry, in the Computer Room. Sam glances at Dani, curious and concerned; Dani's still looking haunted and distracted. Telemetry and video is already coming in from the MALP, but it doesn't tell them much: the Furlings never produce any distinctive energy signatures in their comings and goings.

At 1215 Steve reports in from the pavilion. The Furlings have not only accepted their request for a suspension of the talks, for some reason they seem wildly pleased about it. SG-9 and SG-5 are coming home. Nobody really relaxes until both teams are through the Gate, and the wormhole closes behind them.

Jack calls the debrief for 1300.

###

The new film from the pavilion doesn't tell them much they didn't know. The Furlings still appear as glowing blobs of light, just as she remembers from the Gate Room tapes and the other recordings from 1138. Dani wonders if they're masking their appearance deliberately, or if there's some other reason the film can't record their images. (It's a question she's wondered about before.) She doesn't recognize the female voice, but she knows the male one. He came to her on Kelowna. He's the one who came and bargained with Daniel in the Gate Room. Either he has come specially, on purpose, to bargain again, or maybe there are only two Furlings.

Or perhaps all of them just sound exactly alike.

But when Steve presents his message -- that the Commander of the SGC goes to serve the Commander in Chief at Washington in a post of even greater responsibility and honor, and that the ancient tradition states that warriors must celebrate such an event by feasting for forty days -- neither Coyote nor Raven can contain their glee.

It's actually frightening. Coyote flings back his head -- Steve reports this; they can't see it -- and howls with manic laughter. The sound comes through clearly on the audio, chilling the blood. It's a counterpoint to Raven's laughter, which rises and falls, a madwoman's trilling.

"Oh, she has woven well!" Dani hears Raven say. "A clever child, and all truth! Go, then, and come again on the day appointed."

 _Point to me,_ Dani thinks. _Raven gave something away._ As far as she knows from what Daniel told her last night, Raven should have kept them dangling as long as possible about just who 'Daniel/Danielle Jackson' was. Yet she's named a gender.

"What does she mean, 'all truth'?" Sam asks, when the tape's finished.

"Well, we couldn't exactly tell the Furlings that we were going to bring all the Gate Teams back to the SGC and celebrate for forty days because Jack's going to Washington," Daniel says. "But that was our reason for withdrawing SGs 5 and 9. So we linked two statements that were both true: Jack is going to Washington because he's being promoted, and the ancient tradition requires forty days of celebration for a similar situation. But we didn't say that we were withdrawing all our teams to the SGC to celebrate, because that would be a lie."

"And Raven agreed it was all true," Steve said. "But how did she know it was Dana's solution?"

 _Because she's expecting me,_ Dani thinks, and doesn't say. _Both of them are._

#

Jack dismisses the two SG Teams. The rest of them stay. He looks around the table. At General Landry. "I know this isn't going to be my show for much longer, but I think you oughta listen to what these people have to say, and take their advice. Carter? Trade with the Furlings?"

"Certainly the potential for obtaining advanced technology is there, General," Sam says cautiously. "But even if we can come to some ... _safe_ ... accord as to obtaining it, based on the one sample of their technology we've previously had limited access to, the quantum mirror, I'm not certain we'd be able to retro-engineer anything we acquired. In short, we'd remain dependent on the Furlings for continuing access to their technology, unable to develop it ourselves. I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Daniel?"

Daniel hesitates, then shakes his head. "I don't think Sam's right at all. I think what they'd offer us would be entirely within the scope of our science. It would be the equivalent of glass beads and pretty bangles. Just enough to keep us coming back for more, so they can keep meddling with us. But I'm not sure why -- or if it's a good idea."

"To see what we'll do." Dani's voice is hoarse, as if she hasn't used it for a while. "They built the quantum mirrors. The quantum mirrors show _all_ variations of possible action. I've looked through the mirror. Four years ago, when I started, I could see thousands of variations. By the time I came back here, there were less than six. They played out. Became non-viable. They collapsed. Maybe mine has gone too, by now."

Sam stares at her in shock. That the spread of parallel realities should collapse has special meaning for a theoretical astrophysicist.

"We always think aliens think like us. I don't think the Furlings do. We imagine things, and think about things that aren't real. Speculate. Envision the future. I don't think they can. I think they built the quantum mirrors for that." The idea's come to her as she's sitting here, in the hypnogogic state between waking and sleeping where she spends so much time lately. Since the first time she saw one, she wondered what the purpose of the quantum mirrors was, why a race so obsessed with literal and absolute truths would create a device whose purpose it was to reflect variant truths.

"So you're saying that the quantum mirrors are the Furlings' _imagination_?" Sam asks.

"It makes sense," Daniel says. "In some fairy lore the Fair Folk are fallen angels. They have no creativity. They can't imagine anything, or create anything new. Only imitate, copy--"

Jack clears his throat.

"Contact with the Furlings under any circumstances and for any purpose is not a good idea. Sir," Dani adds for good measure. "I don't think we can enter into a viable trade agreement with them, and any gifts we accept from them without paying for them in some way will be designed to destroy us."

"I agree," Daniel says.

"Okay," Jack says. "Make 'em go away. Shoo. Dismissed," he adds, for Sam's benefit.

#

When the briefing ends, it's 1530 on Wednesday. As of 1200 hours on Friday, Jack will no longer be head of Stargate Command. And General Landry may change all the orders they've just been given. What she will do if he does, Dani doesn't know.

Time waits for no one, whether they have a time machine or not. When she left, the contents of her office were crated and sent to storage. A new specialist took over her space, and has it now. And someone else died, and their equipment was moved to storage, and her file boxes and the crates of her equipment have been moved out of storage and into that new unfamiliar space. The keys to it are waiting in Daniel's office. Daniel told her last night.

"Dana, wait!" Sam's running down the hall after them. "In the meeting -- you said the universes were collapsing?"

She feels an uprush of _rightness_ at the question, and smiles, just a little. Somehow Sammy isn't really dead while Other-Sam's alive. She stops so Sam can catch up to them. The three of them enter the elevator together.

"We were fairly sure that was what was happening when the quantum mirror couldn't get a lock again on a universe we'd previously visited," she answers.

Sam looks frustrated. There are technical questions she wants to ask, and knows Dani won't have the answers. "But--" she says.

"The destination mirror wasn't occluded, because there wasn't one. We never noticed any kind of energy interference to have any effect on the mirrors, even _Goa'uld_ force fields. The other universe simply wasn't _there_ anymore, so we couldn't see it," Dani says.

"How many universes did you look at?" Sam wants to know.

Dani runs her hand through her hair, dislodging the hairclip she found in Daniel's office sometime during the night. It tumbles to the floor with a thin ringing sound. Daniel bends down and picks it up, handing it back to her. She tucks it into a pocket. The elevator doors open and they walk down the hall to Daniel's door.

"Hundreds. I've seen every variation of the SGC you can name. In some it's still a missile silo. In some it's been bombed to a flat plain -- or at least, it _is_ a flat plain, and I assume it was bombed, because Earth hasn't got any atmosphere, either. In some, the Nazis won World War II but have a Stargate Program here, as far as I could tell. In several, the SGC's a civilian force. In one, there's no Earth at all." She shrugs. "But they're all gone now. And in most of them, the _Goa'uld_ conquered Earth anyway."

Sam thinks about this for a moment. "When 'Dr. Carter' came through to our reality, she said she chose it because it was one of the very few that hadn't been overrun by the _Goa'uld_."

"Janet said the same thing. It's true. Pick your _Goa'uld_ : Ba'al, Apophis, Anubis. They conquer Earth in most of the universes I saw. Except for the Replicators in one." She takes a deep breath. In her mind, she hears screams. "And ours, in the end. We got the Replicators _and_ Anubis."

"I'm sorry," Sam says quietly. They're in front of Daniel's door now. He swipes the key and ushers them inside.

Dani simply shrugs. The pain is starting to become something she can live with. So she thinks. "They're probably fighting each other now -- if the universe is still there at all," Dani says. She tries to push back the too-vivid images, hoping she's succeeding. "I've never been watching when one ... vanished."

"But why would--" Sam begins.

"I don't _know_ ," Dani says in abrupt despair, leaning back against the wall. She bows her head, and her hair falls forward into her eyes. "I thought it had to do with Game Theory -- Critical Path and sub-optimal outcome. And that all universes but one are variations on the Critical Path, so only one can survive. I was sure this one had to be the Critical Path, but now that I'm back here, I'm not sure. What if my being here has destabilized you and turned you into another sub-optimal variation? Sam, there just aren't any other universes left for the Critical Path to flip to. There _aren't._ Not with life in them, anyway."

#

"We are not a sub-optimal variation," Sam says firmly. "And we aren't going to destabilize." She says this with firm conviction, and sees some of the panic fade from Dana's eyes. She flicks her gaze sideways at Daniel, willing him to pick up her cue.

"Why don't you go down and see what they've done to your office? I'll be along in a couple of minutes. I just want to go over the details of Jack's surprise party with Sam."

"Daniel, you know he hates surprise parties." Her tone is chiding, completely normal now as she stands away from the wall and digs in her pocket to retrieve the hairclip, pulling her hair back with the other hand. The contrast, the sudden change in emotional weather, is disturbing.

"Yeah, that's why we're figuring out how to leak him the details." He hands her the key to her office. She walks out. Daniel waits three beats, then closes the door again and leans against it.

"How long has she been like that?" Sam asks.

"Oh, gee, hard to say. Since Anubis entered the Solar System about two weeks ago and started killing everybody she's ever known? Since Jack shoved her through the quantum mirror to keep her from going up with the rest of the Base on autodestruct? She's engaged to him, by the way. Or was. Or maybe it's the eight hours of sleep she's gotten in the past day and a half, and knowing that the Furlings want to talk to her." Daniel runs down the list with matter of fact simplicity. Sam can't help wincing.

Engaged.

But in the briefing room, Dana sat across the table from General O'Neill as calmly as if he weren't the mirror image of the man she's just lost.

Lover.

Can she really compartmentalize that well? "Daniel, if she falls apart in the middle of this thing--"

"Sam, she won't. She'll pull through. You can trust her ... well, the way you'd trust me."

That is, Sam knows, the exact and literal truth. Although she doubts Daniel would ever find himself engaged to General Jack O'Neill.

#

He goes down the hall. She's in her new office, unpacking. It's a way not to think, he knows. He checks his watch. Close enough. "Time to go home."

"But--" she says, turning around, her arms filled with books.

"Home," he repeats, going over and taking the stack of books from her arms and setting them on the desk.

#

On the way back to the house, they stop at the supermarket. She finds the quiet normalcy of it almost unbearable. Nothing's in flames. Nobody's screaming in agony. Nobody's dying. Being here makes the last four-and-a-half years seem to collapse and vanish, making her almost wonder if she ever went home at all. Having gone seems almost useless now. She went to prevent disaster. Did she cause it? Delay it? Has she brought it back here with her? Or is she this world's last, best, hope? Nobody knows. Except, undoubtedly, the Furlings.

She has to make them tell her how to maintain this universe as the Critical Path.

She and Daniel buy coffee and eggs, oranges and lettuce, bread. The shopping cart fills with the grace notes of a normal life. Shared.

"That was lame," she says, as they're loading bags into the Jeep. He looks at her quizzically for a moment, then figures it out.

"Well, Sam wanted to know if you'd lost your mind."

She smiles sadly. "I have. But I know where to look for it."

He takes another bag from the cart. "But there really is a party. Ah... it's at my house."

 _Oh._

"Friday night?"

Daniel nods.

"I'll be all right." It will be odd, but not unbearable. There will be no confusion in her mind between the man she left and the man she'll see. It was never, after all, in the way she looks -- _looked_ \-- at Jack. It was in the way he looked at her.

The way this one never will.

#

An hour or so after dinner she sends Daniel off to bed, telling him she'll be fine -- a lie, and they both know it, but one of them should get a decent night's sleep after last night's all-nighter. She bundles up in her comforter and sits curled on the couch watching CNN, the volume tuned nearly to inaudibility. Wars, murders, nuclear threats... It's peaceful. The world's still there. She dozes in small catnaps, surfing the shoal-waters of sleep.

Slowly diving deeper.

 _Hathor is standing before her. The Goa'uld Queen smiles. Heartless, enchanting. "And now," she says, "For my new Jaffa's prim'ta, a comfortable bed."_

 _The ribbon device on Hathor's hand glows a hellish amber. She reaches into Dani's chest, and pulls out her heart. She holds it up, dripping. It shimmers, turning to glass, and Hathor laughs._

 _It's Raven's laughter._

Dani gasps herself awake, clutching at her stomach. The comforter has slipped down off her shoulders and she's covered in a cold greasy sweat. CNN's still droning on in the background. "Whoa," she says, shuddering. "Haven't had that one in a while."

Jack walks out of Daniel's kitchen, a beer in his hand. He sits down on the couch beside her, puts an arm around her, tucking her up warm again.

"What did you expect, Indy?" he asks.

"Jack." She understands. She always has nightmares just before things get really bad. And just after it's all over.

"Time to save the world again." It's a joke, but it's also an order. She knows that.

"I don't know how," she protests.

"You'll think of something." She always does. They always do.

Did.

"But how can I--"

The sound of her own voice wakes her -- _really_ wakes her -- this time. Suddenly there's light outside the windows. It's dawn, and Jack isn't there. She gets to her feet -- stiffly -- and turns off the television. Stretches. Goes to check on Daniel. He's sleeping soundly. It's just rising six.

She thinks about coffee, and decides against it. Goes into the guest room; she can't shower without waking Daniel, but dreaming about Hathor has left her feeling unclean; it always does. She strips and rubs herself down with a towel from one of the boxes until she's dry again and her skin tingles.

The bed is still tumbled and unmade from her first night here. She regards it with disfavor. She knows where she wants to be.

Too soon? Too late? _It's not as if I don't have the permission of the dead,_ she thinks bitterly. For the first time she allows the thought to surface completely: Jack sent her here because he knew about Daniel. Knew there was something -- some _one_ \-- to send her _to_. And she hates him -- hates _Jack_ \-- for sending her away, for not letting her stay with him. To die? She's been dead. It's not that bad. And they've been in bad spots before. They still might have pulled it off. But in her heart she knows: _no, not this time._ The only choices were dead sooner or dead later, and she hopes with all her heart that it's dead sooner. Her absence, with the Eye of Ra, will encourage that: Anubis is likely to slag the entire Mountain when he finds that she's gone.

Anubis wanted her so very badly. Why? Nothing she did made any difference. He won in the end. He can't remake the universe in his image, but that's a small thing. Winning is all that matters. But Jack made sure he didn't win completely. And so she's here.

She digs through boxes for t-shirt and underwear, glances again at the bed. Is it just because she's afraid to sleep alone? It would be unfair to Daniel to use him that way; she's suspicious of her own motives. The old litany of self-flagellation surfaces: incest, masturbation, solipsism, self-obsession ... exactly what _is_ the proper way to describe her relationship with Daniel? It's no longer adultery, spiritual or otherwise. She's a widow now, in every way that matters.

 _Love._

She loved him without realizing it. Loved him while loving Jack with all her heart. She still loves Jack. Love doesn't stop with death. Love is forever. But love is not singular. It hurts, it is interrupted, it is misunderstood. It comes in strange forms. Sometimes it kills. She killed Sha're. She killed the woman Daniel loves as much as she loves Jack, and Daniel still loves her despite that. They have a communion of the dead, now. A new imperfect symmetry.

She pulls on a robe and goes down the hall.

#

He wakes at eight, with the vague realization that the alarm should have gone off and hasn't, then remembers, sleepily, that he's arranged to work at home today. Tomorrow's the hand-off ceremony; he'll be there for that. Teal'c's even coming back from Dakara.

There's someone in his bed. No. Not someone. _Dani._

He thought it would take longer. Is she doing this because she thinks he expects it of her? Or because she's still using him to take the place of Jack? (No. He won't think that.) She's dreaming again, bad dreams. He touches her shoulder to wake her. She rolls into him, hard and fast, as if seeking cover in a firefight. Waking, she takes a deep breath, and despite himself, he tenses. What name will she say, half-asleep and unaware?

"Daniel?"

"I'm here."

#

The high point of Thursday is taking her suits to the same-day drycleaner, which she does all by herself. It follows a morning of telephone calls. Reactivating credit cards. Getting her bank accounts reinstated. The minutiae of returning from the dead. Daniel gives her his ATM card so she can withdraw cash to pay for the dry-cleaning. She takes Daniel's Jeep. Hers is, of course, gone. Along with her apartment, her furniture, her bank accounts...

At least she has a job and some clothes.

She goes by herself to prove she can. To prove she isn't a gibbering basket case. She needs to be able to ... cope. After all, she's going to have to save the world.

She manages to get through it all, but she assesses herself ruthlessly. She tires easily. She's easily distracted. Her thinking and reactions are slow. Worse than the last time she was cast away here. But her responses this time aren't just a reaction to two weeks of _Goa'uld_ and Replicator destruction of Earth. They're a response to spending nearly five years waiting for it.

She's spent seven years of her life, now, waiting. Waiting to find a way to go home. Waiting for reality to catch up with her memories of a future imperfectly remembered. Waiting for the world to die.

Because of the Furlings.

Why her? Why Daniel? If it's true that the Furlings chose them -- one or the other or both -- in order to learn something, what is it they think they can learn from either of them, specifically, that would be unique to them? With so many quantum variants, there must have been another pair that the Furlings could have exchanged. Or -- for that matter -- why make the exchange at all?

There are no answers at the drycleaners', the bakery, or the florist. She buys cookies and a cake, and at the florist, despite her allergies (their allergies), she buys roses.

No flowers grew on Abydos. Sha're had loved her descriptions of flowers, but never quite believed in them.

#

Friday morning. They stagger out of bed and collide with one another getting ready for work in a house not arranged for double occupancy. They dress casually, bringing their formal clothes with them to change into later for the ceremony. She's had to borrow a carryall from Daniel to hold all her accessories. If she hadn't laid out everything she needs in the second (half) bath the night before, it would have been impossible to get ready in time.

Makeup, including Dermablend to cover the scars on her legs. Earrings. Nylons. Heels. A dress watch to replace her usual one for the ceremony, and thank god it survived unbroken in the carnage of Daniel's packing. A chaste and deeply unexceptionable string of cultured pearls, since women, small miracle, aren't stuck with neckties. A slip to go with the skirted suit. _Men,_ she thinks (not for the first time), _have it far too easy._

At the SGC she hangs her dress suit in her locker and changes into her working clothes. BDUs because -- here -- she's still assigned to the Gate Teams as a floating A/T specialist. (There, she was Head of Research for an SGC a quarter the size of this one. She'd worn a lab-coat and sat at a desk. For the last ten weeks of her life, she'd even worn a ring.) On the left shoulder of her BDUs is the Earth patch that all teams wear. The right shoulder has the standard SGC patch, pending assignment to a Team. She hasn't been through the Gate in almost a year. In the real world. Only this isn't the Other Reality any longer; now it's the real world, because the last that survives isn't a copy, a mirror, an echo. There's nothing for it to mirror. There's only one.

Her old routine is a dream half-remembered. She goes from the dressing-room to the Commissary, forcing herself to walk down the center of the halls and not slink along the sides. It's a role to play. Friends greet her, professionally incurious. She was gone. She's back. It's business as usual. Their names come to her, anchoring her further in this reality. She gathers coffee and dry toast from the breakfast line. She doesn't really want the toast. Daniel waves her over. He's sitting with Sam.

"Well, it's all going to be up to General Landry," Sam is saying, continuing a conversation interrupted by her arrival.

"I suppose I'm looking forward to the change," Daniel says.

She looks at them questioningly.

"SG-1's being... Well, there's going to be a new team. I'm putting in for reassignment to Area 51 after I get back from Washington, Teal'c's really needed on Dakara these days, and Daniel..."

"Ten years of field research is plenty," Daniel says firmly. "It's time to put it to good use. There are a lot of projects I've put on hold to go running around the universe with you guys. Besides, maybe I can finally go back to Atlantis again and actually stay there for a while."

If he solves the Furling problem. If General Landry lets them solve it. But... no more SG-1. Sam looks at her, eyebrows raised. _Is this the way it went where you came from?_

Dani thinks about answering her. And wonders again if telling her own people their future is what destroyed them.

"Sammy thought I violated causality," she says quietly. And says nothing else.

#

When she gets to her office, she conscientiously checks her email first. There's nothing much there for her specifically, just the usual All Department memos, and a request from Dr. Brightman for her to check in with the Infirmary the next time she's on-Base, which Dani makes up her mind to ignore for as long as possible. She skims the rest of the traffic quickly, and returns to her unpacking. She's made a serious dent in it by the time she needs to go and get ready for the ceremony.

Dressing for it reminds her inevitably of the other one, when Jack made General back home. That was a happy day, despite everything. The beginning of their life together. She tries not to think about it.

#

They're gathered in the Gate Room, waiting for the handover to begin. The airmen can't dress the ramp until one last guest arrives. The klaxons sound. Incoming traveler. Teal'c comes through the Gate, wearing robes of a sort she's never seen him in before. His forehead gleams gold. She feels a moment of pure panic, followed by utter shame. Teal'c -- either of them -- is her friend. She shouldn't see him first of all things as a Jaffa, but for an instant, she can't help it. He's destroyed worlds just as Anubis' Jaffa have destroyed hers. She spoke for him in Cor-Ai. She knows he hates and regrets his past, and has atoned for it every day of his life since. But for the first time since Sha're's death she wonders: could anything be enough? Does _Teal'c_ think anything can be enough?

He doesn't expect to see her here. For a moment his eyes widen in surprise, finding her -- one of the few civilians -- in the crowd. He sees her expression, and his face goes blank. She knows she'll have to speak to him, make what explanation -- amends -- she can. Though nothing can be enough.

The event horizon collapses, and the airmen move to shift the podium into place. Teal'c's gone to greet Jack. Jack looks, as always, uncomfortable in his dress blues. She dries the palms of her hands on her skirt and moves over to them.

"Teal'c? You remember Dana? She's back."

"So I observe," Teal'c says.

" _Tel ma te_ , Teal'c," she says, bowing. A formal greeting, asking forgiveness.

"I did not think we would see you again, Dana Ballard," Teal'c says.

She swallows hard. "I didn't have any place else to go. Anubis--"

She's interrupted by General Landry calling them to attention.

"We will speak of this further," Teal'c says. They move to their assigned places.

She's never been more grateful for the ceremonial formality of the military, its customs as stylized as a dance. Command is passed under the watchful eyes of the SG Teams. The ceremony is being televised elsewhere in the Base, but they are here in person.

Jack is rigidly correct, absolutely formal.

After the handover, Landry calls Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c up to the platform to stand beside Jack. It's the last time SG-1 will ever stand together. The unit is officially decommissioned, with praises for its long and honorable service. It feels like a death. The ceremony is over. The brigade is dismissed. The SGC belongs to General Landry now.

She waits for Teal'c at the doorway to the Gate Room. When he joins her, they walk to her new office in silence. The Gate Room -- or the hallways -- is no place for a private conversation. When they arrive, Teal'c looks around her half-unpacked office. "You have not been here long."

"Three days." Since Tuesday afternoon. It's Friday now. A lifetime, in some ways. "I was ... home ... for about five years. Things... Anubis attacked Earth, and we couldn't stop him. He ...won."

"I see." A warrior is patient. Teal'c waits.

"We'd found out how to use the quantum mirror without a destination mirror. Jack made me use it to come back here, because Anubis wanted me."

"And your O'Neill would deny him."

"Yes. Teal'c, I'm sorry. When you came through... I know you would never--"

"But I have, Danielle Jackson."

She looks at him and sees the sorrow in his eyes. She knew -- _her_ \-- Teal'c, but this is something she never really understood about him. What he had done. How it must feel to remember what he had done. Until now.

"Teal'c, I'm so sorry. I would never-- You've done so much--"

"It is not enough." His voice is hard.

"It has to be." She closes the distance between them, puts her arms around him. Hugs him tightly. Forgiving, begging forgiveness. "Something has to be."

He puts an arm around her in return, acknowledging the gesture.

#

The reception in the Commissary is brisk and formal. Jack seems to be in a hurry to leave. It's an awkward transition, more awkward than the one between him and General Hammond, less than a year ago here. She shakes his hand. He tells her to be good. She'll see him tonight of course -- providing she doesn't lose her nerve and spend the evening hiding in some closet -- but this is really the moment that counts. She manages to carry it off with grace.

She works in her office till the end of the day. All of her books are back on the shelves by then, but her files are still a mess, only half of them transferred from storage boxes back into cabinets. Maybe she'll ask Daniel to loan her Nyan. Still, what she's gotten done so far is enough to go on with. The summons she's half-expecting from General Landry doesn't come. Good omen? Or is he sharpening the axe?

Daniel's left early to run errands for the party. Sam drives her home. 'Home' meaning to Daniel's.

"What did you mean about 'violating causality?'" Sam asks, when they're in the car. "You mentioned that at breakfast."

She closes her eyes. Sammy never let anything go, and Sam's no different. "When I went home... It was as if I knew the future. Our future. As far as we knew, our two worlds didn't diverge. So I ... told them."

"You told them the _future_?" Sam's tone goes from intrigued to horrified as the implications sink in.

"It didn't help." Sometimes they'd believed her, and things had happened anyway. Sometimes they'd changed things, but the same end result had occurred in a different fashion. And Anubis had destroyed Earth. Had her universe first unraveled because she'd never sought enlightenment on Kheb? Because she'd shot Sha're? Because she'd been born female instead of male? Simplest to say her universe was destroyed because she wasn't Daniel. Only one universe can hold the Critical Path.

"Sam, if I tell you any more about it, I'm afraid something bad will happen here. I wish I'd never told them." But she'd had to tell them something to keep them from dealing with the Furlings. Who had never, as it had turned out, come after all.

"I suppose you're right," Sam says reluctantly.

"I'd better be," Dani answers.

Sam drops her off, and goes to pick up the pizzas. She digs in her purse for her keys to Daniel's house -- she'd never given them back, they'd still been there -- and lets herself in. She hears crashing from the bathroom. Daniel's filling the tub with ice. She joins him, layering the ice with bottles. She wonders how many people will be here tonight, and who. Friends, obviously.

At least it isn't a wake.

"How was your day?" Daniel asks. The grace-notes of normalcy.

"Well, I didn't hear from our new master. I presume he's going to want to talk to me sometime, since I'm not actually assigned right now, and you know the military just hates that."

"Yeah, he does seem kind of ...military," Daniel agrees.

"Well, a General."

There's soda in the kitchen. She pours herself a Coke -- she has no intention of drinking tonight -- and picks at a takeout California roll. She has no appetite, but knows she has to eat. If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then surely eating is related somehow to sanity.

The guests start arriving a bit after seven. Jack's supposed to arrive around eight. The pretext is that he's dropping off his keys so Daniel can look after his place while he's gone. Of course he knows what he'll be walking into, but he also knows -- so Daniel has said -- that there's no way of getting out of it. His friends want to say goodbye.

 _Goodbye, and goodbye, and goodbye._

Everyone here in the room with her is dead.

This isn't a good thought to be having. It isn't a _sane_ thought to be having, and she really needs to be sane right now. But it's also true. A lot of the people here tonight are senior people from the Teams. Back home, they lost two thirds of their Teams to reassignment. Most of them were reassigned to the Starfleet Program. So they're all dead. A lot of them went into Special Ground Forces. So they're all dead. The rest stayed at the Mountain. So they're all dead.

 _But not here. Not yet._

Still, she's watched too many of them die. Major Connor, SG-6. Dead. Captain Topping, SG-4. Dead. Dr. McConnell, from down on 19. Dead.

She slips out the back door.

The stars are brilliant tonight. It's shockingly cold, and her breath fogs the air. She shouldn't stay out here long. In the desert, at night, it's just as cold -- colder -- but not nearly as damp. The stars are brighter, too.

When this is ... over ... for good or bad, she thinks, she'll go away. Not home -- Abydos isn't there any more. But to the nearest thing she can manage. Egypt. Daniel will come with her, she hopes. She'll talk to him about it. Maybe it's just a fantasy, but it's what she needs right now. The idea of a future more than forty days long. She stays outside until her teeth begin to chatter, then reluctantly goes back in.

General Hammond has arrived. He's standing in the kitchen, talking to Sam. That's unexpected, as is the sight of him in civilian clothes. But he's retired, now, once and for all, and his home is in Colorado Springs. His family's here.

They're dead. His daughter, his granddaughters, dead when Anubis incinerated the city from space. She takes a deep breath, and tries to force the worlds apart. She's here, not there. This world is safe.

At first he doesn't recognize her. She isn't sure whether he's one of the people who knew she was supposed to have been ... gone.

"Dr. Ballard?" But the disbelief in his voice is her answer. He knows she shouldn't be here.

"General Hammond."

"Retired," he says with satisfaction. "It's just 'George' now."

"Yes, sir," she says dutifully. She can't imagine calling him 'George.'

"He's here," Daniel says, coming into the kitchen. The others move out into the living room to greet the Guest of Honor. She hangs back.

She'll go out in a few minutes.

#

Jack's brought Teal'c with him. That's unexpected; she's pretty sure Teal'c was supposed to go back to Dakara immediately. She wonders what changed. The thought that something has is disturbing. It isn't so much that she fears change, now. She's not sure whether she's become numb to fear, or is simply always afraid. But change has become a language to which she's acutely sensitive, one with eternally dangerous implications. One to which she still lacks the key.

Jack deals with his 'surprise party' quite well, and actually seems to have a good time. He'd better. There are going to be a lot more parties where he's going, and he's not going to be able to get out of any of them. Ancient memories of half a lifetime ago surface: endless faculty teas, cocktail parties, mixers, meet'n'greets ... the endless asocial social round that she'd found so deadly and so pointless. And which everybody else around her had deemed so necessary. How is he going to be able to stand it?

He'll stand it. Homeworld Security is the military oversight organization for the SGC, Atlantis, and Area 51, as well as for elements of Space Command. Jack O'Neill will do anything he has to, to keep them all safe.

She stays at the edges of things, hiding in crowds, and manages a whole hour before getting her coat -- this time -- and going outside again.

#

"Rough?" Jack's followed her out.

"I'll be okay."

"Beer?"

"Not tonight."

He's done her the courtesy, almost from the beginning, of believing her. Believing _in_ her. That she's as strong, as capable, as the man he knows.

"Anything I can do?"

"Have fun in Washington."

"Oh, yeah." His voice is rueful and faintly disgusted. She hears glass clink as he turns to go inside.

The party breaks up around eleven. They decide to leave clean-up for the morning. Daniel holds out the bottle of pills Brightman has prescribed. "Come on," he says. "I'll wake you if it gets bad."

She takes it. Reluctant. Trusting him. Knowing he's right.

But she doesn't dream.

#

Monday.

Sam and Jack are both far away by now. Teal'c's back on Dakara. The SGC's Under New Management. The air seems subtly different. She and Daniel are notified of a 1300 briefing with General Landry. Before it, she spends the morning, unwillingly, with Dr. Brightman, who tells her she's run-down, overworked, and under severe stress. All of which she knows.

"I'd really like to recommend you for an extended leave of absence."

"Fine. Two months from now. For as long as you like. But I have to finish a special project first. It's time-sensitive, and it won't wait."

Brightman is surprised. "Can I put that in your file? About you going on leave?"

Dani shrugs. "Sure. But I'm not going one minute sooner." She actually only needs thirty-seven days, but she doesn't trust the military mind.

"I can't certify you for field duty, either."

It takes Dani a moment to remember that she's still on the Gate Teams here. "That's fine. It's a research project. I'll be flying a desk." One of Jack's pet phrases. She catches her breath.

"And--"

"No MacKenzie."

"Dr. Ballard--"

"Dr. Brightman," she echoes back. "Give me pills, if it will make you happy. In two months I will go on leave. When I come back, I promise, I will see MacKenzie as much as you like. But right now--"

"You can't afford to have what he's going to say entered into your record, can you?" Dr. Brightman asks, regarding her.

 _No. I can't. He'd make me go on leave immediately. Or maybe just lock me up._ "I am overworked and under severe stress. You said so yourself." _I talk to dead people._

She won't survive another round of MacKenzie's prodding. She can barely get through the day as it is. And General Landry isn't General Hammond, or Jack. She doesn't think she'll receive any special grace from him. If she sees MacKenzie, and his report comes back filled with enough doom -- or is even merely accurate -- Landry will order her to take a long sabbatical (at the very least), without consideration for the fact that the Furlings have demanded her presence on PHX-1138 in 37 days and the SGC has promised to produce her.

She doesn't think the Furlings will take well to broken promises.

Brightman sighs. "You people. Two months. Not one day more. Three month medical leave after that -- and a _real_ vacation, promise me. Meanwhile, I expect you to eat and sleep like a normal person, and put back on the weight you've lost. You're going to check in here three times a week, and if I don't see real physical improvement, our whole deal's off."

Dani nods. It's a better deal than she expected to get.

"How are the pills I gave you working out?"

She shrugs. "I've been sleeping. Not too bad."

"I'm prescribing you a mild antidepressant. If you won't see Dr. MacKenzie, that's your alternative. And I _will_ know if you don't take it, so don't even think about what you're thinking about."

She hates drugs with a passion. "What if it keeps me from working?"

"Then we adjust the dosage," Brightman says implacably.

Drugs or witchdoctors. Not much of a choice.

She takes her vitamin shots -- like every doctor the SGC has ever had, Brightman is a great believer in the healing power of needles -- and is allowed to dress and leave.

#

1300 hours. The Briefing Room. Daniel starts to sit beside her, the way they're used to. She jerks her head, motioning for him to take a seat across the table from her. She's not sure why just yet. But this feels like an ambush. Klaxons sound as a team is dispatched through the Gate. She glances down through the window, wondering which one, and where they are going. General Landry's voice summons her attention back.

"Doctors, over the weekend I've given our current situation a great deal of thought. There's no denying that contact with the Furlings represents both a great problem and a great opportunity." He sounds like Senator/Vice President/ _Goa'uld_ Kinsey, with a little less God-and-Country in the mix. Jack's friend? She supposes it's possible.

"I've had the opportunity to discuss the matter of our negotiation strategy with the Pentagon -- and, of course, to go over all of your reports."

She doubts that. She doesn't know what Daniel's written, let alone Steve and Charlie, but her notes on the Furlings fill several file drawers.

"We believe it's important to pursue a relationship with the Furlings. Your concern over the possible negative aspects of contact with a more advanced race does you credit, naturally. But ultimately, you don't _know_ what they'll do. You just have theories."

Daniel opens his mouth to protest. She fixes him with her best imitation of Jack O'Neill's special warning glare. She already knows the worst: Landry's going to disregard all Jack's advice about the Furlings. He wants to deal with them. Or someone does, and he's going to go along. It's General Bauer all over again, except nobody's going to rescue them from General Landry.

"That's right, General," she says firmly. "They're only theories. We'll be delighted to discover they're wrong. The Furlings have a great deal to offer us."

Daniel's staring at her in shock, his mouth open to protest. He closes it slowly. She knows what he's thinking. She thinks it too. She's gone mad. She knows she has, following orders given to her by a dead man in a dream. But she knows the two of them can't fight General Landry. She came into this meeting knowing whatever he said, no matter how stupid, she was going to agree with it. Knowing she will lie, betray anyone, destroy her career here, risk anything, to be on PHX-1138 on the forty-first day and in a position to make the Furlings go away.

"That's hardly what you said the other day, Dr. Ballard."

"I realize that, General Landry. Certainly the safest course of action -- as I said then -- would be to have no contact with them at all. And I still have to strongly advise against accepting gifts without providing acceptable gifts in return. But if, as you say, the Pentagon wishes to pursue a trade relationship with the Furlings, it's our business to make that happen. It's not without risk, General. But the SGC -- _Earth_ \-- has taken risks before. We've had contact with the Furlings in prehistory, and we're still here. That indicates such contact is survivable. With the time to prepare properly, I'm sure we can come up with something appropriate."

Jack -- either of them -- wouldn't have trusted her change of heart for a moment. Neither would General Hammond, though he'd certainly have concealed it better -- and then nailed her later. But Landry doesn't know her. And Landry expects to be agreed with because he's the General, not because he's earned it. _The rank, not the man._ Jack's explained to her how the military works.

For once, it's going to work in her favor.

"That's good, then. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't make them wait around a while. But when we go back there in six weeks, I want what they can offer us, as a gift or otherwise, and I want a trade agreement in place. Is that clear?"

 _Five weeks and two days._

"Perfectly, General. We'll certainly have something for you. I'll want Dr. Jackson working with me on this, of course." She speaks with the calm assumption of privilege she learned in her year as Jack's _de facto_ 2IC. She reinforces her first glare at Daniel with another, but by now he's sitting quietly. Just waiting.

"I assume you have no objections to that, Dr. Jackson?"

"Oh, no. It would be great to work with Dr. Ballard," Daniel says innocently.

"Then that's settled. Keep me updated on your progress. Weekly reports will be fine. Dismissed."

Daniel waits until they're back up on Geek Row before saying anything. In fact, he waits until they get into his office.

"What the _hell_?"

She pulls him back directly under the security camera in his office. They can't be seen, now, and there's no audio pickup, only video. Still, she keeps her voice low. Delusion. Paranoia. The symptoms of madness. Or possibly of a greater sanity.

"He's made up his mind. He doesn't want to hear anything else. Argue with him, and we spend the next six weeks up in C&T and he throws Charlie and Steve back into the hopper with orders to deal. Daniel, we're all that's left of SG-1. It's time to save the world."

 _Time to save the world again, Indy._

Daniel looks down at her as if measuring her sanity. She forces herself to meet his gaze. She doesn't hope she's right. She knows she is. She just hopes she's sane.

"I assume you have a plan...?" he asks at last. They're standing very close. His breath tickles her ear.

"We do a lot of research. It's not about trade. I don't think it was ever really about trade. We have to find out what it's really about and be ready to deal with them when we go back there on the forty-first day."

"Which means keeping General Landry happy."

"Which means keeping General Landry happy," she agrees.

#

"You understand we're probably going to both get thrown out of the SGC if this works?" Daniel says. They're driving home. For a moment she worries that the car's bugged, then dismisses the thought as her own unreliable paranoia.

"Well, two months from now I'm on a three-month mandatory medical leave anyway, courtesy of Dr. Brightman. After which I have to see MacKenzie before I can come back, and who knows what he'll say? Brightman's not certifying me to go through the Gate, either, so I'm not sure how I'm getting back to PHX-1138. Oh, and I've got a nice new Prozac prescription, too."

"So ... thinking of retiring?"

It's a joke, but suddenly she can't answer. She thinks of where she was, what she was doing, half a year ago. A month ago. Last week.

"Daniel," she says, hating the raggedness in her voice, "Back home I was running half the SGC." _How can I go from that ... to this?_

#

He keeps his eyes on the road, driving on autopilot now. The story he knows she had to tell is coming closer to the surface. But it isn't the one he'd expected.

"Our budget kept getting cut every year. Between what we did and what Anubis and Ba'al did, there were no _Goa'uld_ anywhere that anyone could see. In the end, we had eight Gate teams instead of twenty-four. I resigned from SG-1 over a year ago and took a desk job. With the cuts, we were bleeding people -- to the military, to Area 51 and the private sector. At first I just ran AA &T, but after a while we folded AA&T in with Physics and Engineering and I became Head of Research. It was one way to make sure I wouldn't have to leave. I briefed all the teams, assigned all the incoming projects. Recommended missions based on probe data. I had no idea of what the physicists and engineers were talking about, but I'd listen to them, and I didn't scare them as much as... Anyway, after the first few months, I was running the whole Research and Support side. What was left of it. I knew what was important enough to bother him with, and what wasn't. You know."

He knows, now, how she managed to run that meeting this afternoon so efficiently. He spares a moment to feel sorry for General Landry. This isn't Dani's SGC -- not in the way the other one obviously was -- but it's equally obvious she's not going to give it up without a fight. And she's as sneaky as Jack is. It's a difference between the two of them, him and her. They're both very bad liars, but Dani has a greater ability to avoid being confronted with a direct question that she doesn't want to answer.

He knows he shouldn't go along with this. Landry wants to trade with the Furlings, and they all know that's crazy. He should tell someone before it goes any further. Tell Jack, since confronting Landry won't do any good. She's right about that.

And he knows he won't.

"You must have terrified the Pentagon," he says.

"Not enough," she answers.

#

She takes the first of the small pink pills after dinner, feeling that she's now somehow tainted. But they're Dr. Brightman's price for keeping MacKenzie away, and undoubtedly the presence or absence of the drug will show up in her bloodwork, so she dares not renege on her devil's bargain.

She knows she should have brought reading home -- in all the folklore that has accumulated around the Fairy Folk, there has to be something that will help them deal with the Furlings -- but even though it's barely eight o'clock, she's already exhausted. It's not the pills. It's her. The universe is going to be destroyed because she _can't stay awake._

"Bed," Daniel says firmly.

She allows herself to be bullied. She has to trust Daniel. There's no one else left.

#

"So where will you go on your leave?"

Tuesday. The commissary. Oatmeal. She's determined to finish the entire bowl. She glances at him. _Am I going alone?_

"Haven't been to Egypt in a while," she suggests tentatively.

He smiles. "Egypt's nice," he says noncommittally.

They're all going to die and he's _teasing_ her. It's actually comforting.

#

They need to woo Landry, lull him. Convince him not only that they'll do what he wants, but that they're the best ones to do it. She doubts Landry trusts them. They're civilians, and this is a military program; the military rarely trusts civilians, even when it needs them. She knows that her being Daniel's quantum double spooks Landry on some irrational level, even though the Pentagon gave her its permission to be here years ago. Landry has time and latitude between now and the time they're to meet with the Furlings to do anything. Fire them both. Hospitalize her. Send Daniel back to Pegasus. Turn the negotiation back over to SG-9 with orders to accept the Furlings' gifts unconditionally.

Unfortunately, their SGC records speak for themselves. Daniel's is worse, because it's longer: a catalogue of willfulness, rebellion, mental instability, insubordination, and anarchy, redeemed only by the fact that SG-1 kept saving the world. Hers is shorter, and -- at least here -- somewhat better, but there are things Jack never entered into the official record that are public knowledge anyway, and can be dredged up. Other matters, too, that can be made to look worse than -- she suspects -- General Hammond made them look at the time.

In one sense, of course, General Landry's right. They have no proof of what the Furlings will do, only her suspicions of what they _may_ do. Those are largely based on her research, and the proofs of that are lost now in another universe. Some of it can't be recreated at all, because the artifacts don't exist here. The rest would take too long to duplicate. All of it boils down to speculation.

The Furlings took Daniel away and hid him. They brought her here out of her own universe. The reasons they gave for doing these things were -- apparently -- not the true ones, because -- though she had fulfilled all their conditions -- they never appeared in her universe; and, though it seemed that this universe hadn't answered the riddle Coyote had set it, he and Raven came here almost as soon as she was sent home. And that's very odd, since everything she's learned of them by direct observation indicates the Furlings are as obsessive about the exact and literal truth as any two year old. She doesn't know whether or not they _can_ lie, but they've reacted strongly every time they have detected shades of untruth from Charlie, Steve, or Daniel.

The abduction-and-transposition is the single aggressive and manipulative act the SGC can honestly place at the Furlings' door. And aliens have used weirder opening gambits when they wished to communicate. The fact that she believes the Furlings have meddled with human culture for thousands -- even tens of thousands -- of years, and are remembered by humanity as Elves, Fairies, and Trickster Gods -- heartless, manipulative, and treacherous -- is something that's simply Not Proven. Her years of experience, _Daniel's_ years of experience, in dealing with alien and offworld cultures apparently count for nothing.

What she knows -- what she _believes_ \-- is that the Furlings are offering them Goblin Fruit: power sources, FTL drives, advanced weapons, and promises of other things in the future, with no talk of payment. They say these things have already been paid for, but they won't explain. SG-9 had been trying to find out why they're doing this, and who is paying or has paid, but that was while Jack was in command. Now General Landry just wants the pretty toys. It would be a reasonable wish ... if you didn't remember the lesson of the Aaschen.

So she and Daniel will spend their days doing their best to spin gold out of straw. Come up with an appropriate collection of trade items and a suitable strategy to involve the Furlings in a treaty. Steve didn't manage to get that far, but he was handicapped by actually attempting to negotiate with the Furlings. She's simply doing research, working on a list of suitable -- plausible -- gift items. She intends to hold it back until the last minute, to use it to distract Landry from her actual goal.

Meanwhile, there's the real question, the one they're both working on even harder. What do the Furlings really want and how can they make them go away forever?

#

She's staring into her screen, watching glowing blobs and men in olive drab, but she isn't really listening to Steve go round and round with Raven anymore. There are hours of this on tape and it all sounds pretty much the same. She's going to listen to it all, just in case. But she finds her mind drifting. She's been here eight days. Each night she takes another pill. They're white ones now, stronger. She understands the dose builds up in the body. Brightman says they can discuss lowering the dose in a few weeks.

She doesn't _have_ a few weeks.

She isn't really sure how the medication's affecting her. She feels a little groggy all the time, but there are a number of things that could explain that. (Shock, most of them.) She hasn't had another set of the shakes, or a crying jag, and she feels vaguely cheated. Isn't she entitled to a nice bout of soul-cleansing hysterics? But she can't work up the energy. If she could just manage to wake all the way up, maybe she could think this problem through and find a solution.

She stares into the screen, wishing she weren't here. This is not a good time to be here. But if she could go to any _when_ , when would it be? To before she'd gone to PHX-1138 for the first time, and never go there? Would that save her from the Furlings' attention? Would it create a world in which she would never meet Daniel, never love Daniel? Never find the courage, the clarity, to tell Jack she loved him? She realizes that from the moment she told him she loved him until their last kiss was exactly as long as she spent here. In The Other Reality.

She counts out her time in mirror images.

Does that mean by telling Daniel she loves him she's doomed an entire universe? The idea's a little far-fetched even for her in her current overwrought condition. But it's not too much to believe that the Furlings would be using her as a timing-piece in an insane game.

No. Not insane. _Alien._

But it makes no sense. The Furlings are one of the Four Great Races. The Asgard and the Nox -- and even the Ancients, as often as not, from what she now knows -- are kind to Humanity in their ways. Both the Asgard and the Nox believe that humans will someday succeed them, though not for millennia. (And assuming Humanity survives.) But the Ancients -- except for the Ascended -- are gone. The Ascended (except for a rogue few) don't meddle. The Nox are pacifists, and know contact with such a contentious race as the _Tau'ri_ will be used by them to further the arts of war, so they hold themselves aloof -- yet long ago, when humanity was a peaceful race, the Nox came to Earth often. The Asgard, who once held back the _Goa'uld_ in this galaxy through a network of treaties (largely maintained by unenforceable threats and a series of bluffs) have been humanity's most approachable allies among the Four Great Races, though the Ancient Alliance is now a thing of the past. But what sundered it? Was it the disappearance of the Ancients? Or did the Furlings betray it?

Could one of the Four Great Races actually be ...evil?

Crypto-history's an inexact science, especially since all her notes are lost in another universe. Daniel thinks that the Furlings were responsible for the evolution of the _Goa'uld_. This is consistent with her own theory of the Furlings-or-Fairies giving 'uplifting' gifts to younger races. The Nox stopped visiting Earth before the _Goa'uld_ arrived and never came back. The departure of the Nox marks the end of the mythological 'Golden Age' -- a period of peace and plenty without disease or war, similar to those conditions which now obtain on the Nox homeworld.

After the rebellion against Ra in 2995BCE, the Giza Stargate was hidden and sealed. A few dozen centuries later, tales of 'peris' begin to appear in the Middle East. Trickster Gods are already well established there, and also in the West, where the Great Celtic Migration has already begun: it's her theory that this point marks the first arrival of the Furlings on Earth. Around 1700BCE the _Goa'uld_ return to Earth and continue taking _Tau'ri_ slaves, which they'll continue to do until they are apparently (this is her theory) frightened away by the Black Death. At any rate, in all their travels through the Gate, the SGC has never encountered a _Goa'uld_ -derived Earth-based culture from later than circa 1100CE.

What does it all mean?

The Asgard oppose the _Goa'uld_. The Furlings may have uplifted -- created -- the _Goa'uld_.

Both the Nox and the Ancients -- for different reasons -- are out of the equation, having left Earth long before the _Goa'uld_ , the Asgard, or the Furlings arrive. The Furlings don't actively support the _Goa'uld_ now. Nor do they oppose the Asgard. But what do they _want_? If they want to see the world as it would be if the _Goa'uld_ won, all they need to do is look through the quantum mirror. There are -- at least there _were_ \-- plenty of worlds where the _Goa'uld_ won. And none of them survived.

"Why not?" she says aloud. What makes a universe collapse? Is it just because the Furlings have learned all they can from it?

Why is she here?

She's here because Jack sent her through the quantum mirror.

Why did Jack send her through the quantum mirror?

To save her from Anubis. But there were other ways. There are limits to the revivification capabilities of a sarcophagus. Three shots from a zat disintegrates. If she'd died in the Cheyenne Mountain explosion, she'd be safe now. At least from Anubis.

She paces her office.

Against her will, she has to admit that the little white pills are of some use. She can contemplate horror with a certain detachment.

And look for answers.

#

"Daniel?"

She finds him in his office, surrounded by books. They know Medieval Welsh, but Ancient Gaelic's not one of their languages. He's learning it now, and will teach it to her when he's done, so they can read several of the texts they need in the original. So much is lost in translation.

He looks up.

"We believe that the Ascended have no concept of time, correct?"

"We know the Ancient language doesn't use tense forms. Everything is 'now.' So -- and I'm guessing from what the Replicator version of Sam said to me, because I _really_ don't remember -- if the Ascended _do_ have a concept of time, it would be more like a directional sense."

"Meaning they can see the future and the past all at once, the way we'd look at a landscape, or a map?"

Daniel shrugs. It's as good a guess as any, and it's not like there's anyone they can ask.

"So that day in my apartment, when you dropped in, you already knew that Anubis was going to win."

#

He gets up from his desk. He doesn't want to be angry with her, but he can't help it. "Dani, I don't remember. That's the price of coming back."

"Don't you wonder why you came? I do."

"I _know_ why I went. And so do you." She shakes her head, not wanting the answer. But he knows it's what she came for. "How much warning would you have had if I hadn't come?"

"A week. The fleet appeared at the edge of the Solar System and took a week to reach Earth. We had no hint they were coming. But it didn't--" _It didn't make any difference._ That's what she's about to say.

"Yes it did." His voice is harsh. "Three months gave Jack time to think of using the quantum mirror."

"That's what you--" She can't finish the sentence. She turns and runs.

He can't leave it like this. He follows her to her office. She's locked the door, but he still has the spare key. She's standing under the security camera, out of its range, pressed against the wall, crying silently. It's a skill he remembers acquiring.

"I don't remember why it was important for you to come back here," he says quietly. "I don't know why I did what I did. But if I could see your world end, then I must have seen the Furlings come back to mine."

" _You_ make them go away." Her voice is muffled, thick with tears.

"I can't. I've tried. You've seen the tapes. Nothing we've done is working. We haven't been able to reach the Asgard, and I'm not sure if they can help, anyway."

She turns around, leaning against the wall to look at him. Her glasses are fogged. She pulls them off, rubs her eyes. "Oh, Daniel, don't tell me I'm here because I'm your only hope?" she says bitterly.

"I have no idea," he says honestly. "You told Landry we've survived Furling gifts in the past. Maybe we will again."

"In the past, they gave us things like iron and fire, and look what we did with them. Now they want to give us bombs that will make _naquaadriah_ weapons look like a wet firecracker," she says harshly.

Daniel winces faintly. She's right. They both know it.

"And is ... _that_... the only reason you ... _meddled_?" The intonation, the inflection, are Jack's. She's angry. It's better than despair, better than flatness. But it still hurts.

"I hope so." He has no better answer.

#

There's still ...constraint... between them at the end of the day. He should have handled that better. He should have handled _everything_ better. But what good is having the nearly-infinite power and knowledge of the Ascended and not using it? He supposes that's why he came back.

Twice.

He'd meddled the first time he was Ascended, too. (At least according to Jack: he doesn't remember.) Tried to stop Anubis from taking the Eye of Ra. That ended in the destruction of Abydos, and Anubis gaining the Eye of Ra -- because he told Jack to _give_ Anubis the Eye of Ra. And apparently, before he came back the last time, he set in motion a train of events that he knew -- even without the Ascended Wisdom it's easy to guess, knowing Jack -- would end with Dani coming back here. Which must have been his intention.

He really can't guess at his motives for bringing Dani here. He's reasonably certain they weren't purely selfish, though he's ...happy... to have her here, but he's not entirely certain which world he was saving. His own would be the obvious answer -- but what if it was hers? Anubis might have beamed her out of The Mountain before the bomb went off. If he had, if he'd made her a host, he would have had all the details of the Resistance, the codes for Atlantis, everything she knew. Anubis might have beamed the _bomb_ out of The Mountain, in which case, if her world is still there, things are ... very bad.

He isn't going to tell her that. She's right about the Furlings, anyway. Humanity survived their simple gifts. He doubts they'll survive these.

They drive home in silence.

She's still upset when they arrive. No, upset isn't the word. _Agitated._ She's pacing back and forth, and can't sit still.

"Dani, come and sit down."

"I have to tell you." She's pacing the living room as if it were a holding cell.

"Tell me what?"

"But if I tell you, I could make it worse. I don't know. Did you ever wonder? Do _they_ wonder? Do they _care_?"

"Who?" She's working herself up into ... something. Would it be better to let it happen, or get her to take one of the pills? She has tranquilizers to help her sleep. Stronger ones for 'emergencies.' Anti-depressants, which are Brightman's price for letting her come to work, as if depression weren't a normal reaction to seeing your entire world incinerated by the _Goa'uld_. He thinks she'd be better off without them. He knows she hates them. But they have no choice about her taking them. And he knows she hates losing control. She's like Jack that way.

"Oma. The others. They see how it's all going to go, and they just watch. Anubis watched. He watched me. For years."

The names give him clues. She's talking about the Ascended. "What do you want to tell me?" He goes over to her and tries to take her by the shoulders. She shrugs him off irritably.

"I don't want to tell you. I _have_ to tell you," she corrects him pedantically. "I don't know. I shouldn't. I should never have told. It only made things worse. Makes things worse. Will make things worse."

He wants to shake her. "You aren't making any sense."

"Maybe it will help." She's talking to herself again. "I did what you did. What you wanted to. And it all went wrong. _I_ was all wrong." She turns away, starting to pace again. Wringing her hands.

He doesn't want to do this. He really doesn't. But she's scaring him. _"Indiana!"_

She spins back, head up. Her eyes are wide, dark, completely focused now. She takes a step forward and slaps him as hard as she can. It's pretty hard. His glasses go flying. Then she's in his arms, more shocked by having done it, apparently, than he is.

"I'm sorry, Daniel, Daniel, I'm sorry, I'm sorry--"

He puts his arms around her. "I think, actually, that I was supposed to slap you."

"Would you like to?"

"No, not really. Are you feeling all right?"

"Better. Awful." There's a pause. "They called me 'Indiana' back ... there."

"Jack told me." It was how they knew they'd found the right universe. It's not how he thinks of her. "So ... want to talk about it?"

She locates his glasses and they sit down. She curls up next to him, seeking comfort. "I didn't want to tell anybody, because I thought it might ... affect temporal causality. But it's the past. So I'm not sure it can hurt anything. Of course, that's what I thought the last time," she adds bitterly. She rests her head on his chest. Her voice, though tired, is clear and sane now. "I think it may help, though I'm not sure how. You see, when I went ...back... I meddled too."

Meddled. The way he had. Or tried to. She tells him the whole story in detail now. Of going back to her own universe knowing what was, essentially, the future. Of doing all she could to change it. To fight Anubis. Help the _Tok'ra_. The Asgard.

"But in the end, it didn't matter. We saved Egeria, but Evil Robot Sam was still created. We kept the Ancient Device at Dakara out of Anubis' hands by destroying it, but he allied with the Replicators instead of fighting them. And he took Earth. I don't know how I could have made it come out differently. I _tried_." She sounds more baffled than anything else, no longer either angry or grieving.

"I know." He wonders how many times -- and with equivalent foreknowledge -- he tried to alter the outcome of things and failed. Maybe it's a blessing that he can't remember. He never thought he'd think that. "Maybe there was no way to win."

"I don't think there was," she whispers. "I really don't."

"How long did you know?" He's not sure why he asks the question. _How long did you know you weren't going to win?_

It's a long time before she answers. "Here, Sam thought the Replicators hesitated at the crucial instant because something held them back. She thought it must have been you. You weren't there. I couldn't be you. So ... five years. Almost five years."

He bends down and kisses the top of her head, very gently.

#

Monday again. Her eleventh day of afterlife. Thirty days until they go back to PHX-1138. They have a brisk fifteen-minute progress meeting with General Landry and his XO, delivering the first of their weekly status reports. After Landry's reaction to her first few remarks, Dani cues Daniel to lead the rest of their side of the discussion, even though she's supposed to be the Furling expert and Daniel's supposed to be helping her, not the other way around. She suspects the General's more comfortable having the suggestions come from Daniel, and not from her. She doesn't care who they come from, as long as Landry leaves them alone to work.

Daniel explains that it's important to meet with the Furlings 'under their own rooftree,' as it were, instead of on the Furlings' home ground. He suggests that the SGC construct a pavilion in their 'tribal colors,' which can be erected in the Furling city, near the Furling pavilion. It should be as ornate as possible. They'll insist on moving the negotiations there. Every concession they can get the Furlings to make strengthens Earth's position. The idea's actually fundamentally sound, supported with pages of citations.

The General okays it, and requests preliminary sketches of the pavilion design at next week's meeting.

#

"You know, if we bought a couple of more pieces of furniture, you could stop keeping your clothes in cardboard boxes," Daniel says. It's Saturday. He's going over to check on Jack's place. He's asked if she wants to come along, but that's something she can't bear to do. Not yet.

"And put them where?"

"We could get rid of the daybed."

'We.' That's twice now. They're a 'we.' As for the daybed, not much use for it anyway. It would be admitting that they're living together. Intend to live together. Aren't going to stop living together any time soon. She nods. "I'd like that." Just hope Landry doesn't look at the Personnel records when she updates her residence address. On the other hand, what can he say?

He brushes her hair back out of her eyes. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."

While he's gone, she goes to the guest room and hunts through boxes. Finds her sheets and towels and blankets. Adds them to his. Puts her throw pillow on his couch. The things she won't need -- flatware, kitchenware -- she boxes up to send away with the daybed.

Light housekeeping.

#

She's been debriefing Charlie and Steve -- at least, when she can catch them on-world. They know more than the tapes can tell her. They've seen Coyote and Raven -- at least they have the impression they have. And they're trained observers.

"What I don't get is why, all of a sudden, Raven should start asking for 'Danielle Jackson'. Daniel's been with us practically since she and Coyote showed up. General O'Neill dragged him back from Pegasus, and he wasn't too happy about it," Steve says.

"I bet." She wonders, and not for the first time, why the male Furling has chosen to be known as 'Coyote.' 'Raven' is ambiguous enough. It could be either Celtic or Native American. But a coyote's a New World animal, and the name of the Trickster God shared by many of the Plains Indian tribes.

Coyote is also the Creator of the World.

"Of course," Steve goes on, "Maybe she _is_ asking for _Danielle_ Jackson. I mean, the Furlings built the quantum mirrors. There's got to be a universe where he was born female. In fact, I suppose--"

Charlie gets it first. The physical resemblance has always been close enough to incite gossip, even among the professionally incurious. _Sister, cousin, Asgard clone, nanite-grown daughter..._

"Steve? Colonel?" Charlie says.

Steve stops in mid-sentence. Looks at her. _Really_ looks at her. The timing's too exact. She goes away. The Furlings arrive. She comes back. The Furlings ask for Danielle Jackson. She realizes they must never have seen the Gate Room tapes of the Furling's first appearance at the SGC -- or they'd have known all this already. That has to be one of the reasons Jack brought Daniel back. To brief them without telling them everything. It's undoubtedly one of the reasons the talks were going so badly.

"So," Steve says. "You'll be there?"

"Yes," she says. "I'll be there."

They return to their analysis.

#

She takes comfort from Daniel's presence beside her in the night, though most of the time -- far too much of the time -- she's too tired to do anything but sleep. Her choices seem to be drug-induced unconsciousness, or a sort of twilight insomnia that leaves her a walking zombie all the next day. She doesn't know which is worse. Either carries with it the same unutterable sense of guilt. That she's not who she ought to be. That she's not what he deserves.

Perhaps the mirror sent her back ... wrong. Untested transfer through a single-source quantum mirror. Who knows? She turns to the work to try to forget.

#

She's running the tapes of the Furling's first Gate Room visit. The screaming, crying woman is a stranger. It's thirty months ago. It's seven years ago. Thinking about it makes her head hurt. She has the terrible certainty that the drugs are affecting her very badly indeed. But if that's true, then why is Brightman so pleased?

She doesn't want to ask Daniel. She doesn't want to hear what he'll say. Especially since there's nothing she can do about it. She thinks maybe it's better this way, anyway. She feels guilty depending on him so much. Needing him. But that isn't the point, is it? _He_ needs _her. They_ need her. She forces herself to concentrate, feeling distantly that it shouldn't be this hard. The Furling. The Gate Room. At the moment the Furling was offering to return her to Kelowna, she'd already _been_ back -- and gone again, taking the rest of SG-1 with her.

If Daniel had let her go that day, what would have happened?

She would've been in two places at once on Kelowna, but that wouldn't matter. She _was_ in two places for a while -- on the surface and above it, in orbit. If he'd let her go, the Future Her would still take -- have taken -- the others through the Gate. Her -- _other_ \-- body would vaporize in the explosion.

Or would the _her_ from the future, from the Temporal Loop, the one arriving there with General-Jack and the timeship, simply vanish the moment the past-her was returned by the Furling, since everything that came afterward simply would ... never have happened? Jack-there would have looked for her. He, at least, would have died in the blast, though he might have sent the others through in time. Would her report to General Hammond -- already thrown through the Gate -- have survived the Temporal Paradox? Would she actually have had time to send it through the Gate?

She doesn't know.

But the important thing -- the thing to focus on here -- is listening to the Furling offer to take her home, when it knows -- it _has_ to know -- that on The Other Side she's already going home.

As if it was all done for show.

As if this -- here, now, in this reality -- is the only moment that matters.

#

And Monday. Eighteen days. Another report. Twenty-three days until their return to PHX-1138. General Landry asks Daniel to remain after the briefing.

"I'd say things are going pretty smoothly on this, wouldn't you, Dr. Jackson?"

"Well, General, it's hard to say until we actually start the talks with the Furlings again," Daniel answers.

"No, you've made quite a number of breakthroughs," General Landry insists firmly. (Daniel wonders if he's actually read their reports.) "The Pentagon feels very comfortable with beginning with an initial exchange of gifts, as you've suggested, and going on from there to treaty talks."

He's suggested no such thing. And he doesn't give a damn about what the Pentagon's comfortable with.

"Now I want you to provide us with a list of appropriate presents. Something suitable. Oh, and Dr. Jackson?"

"General?" He tries hard to keep the irony out of his voice, and hopes he manages it.

"I'm thinking of reassigning Dr. Ballard. Dr. Brightman tells me she'll be going on leave in a month or so anyway, and we don't want to overwork her. You've done most of the work on this project, after all."

"Dr. Ballard's our expert on the Furlings, General. I really need her help on this."

"Well, if that's what you want. But Cataloguing and Translation tells me they've got a real backlog."

"I'm sure she'll be happy to deal with it when she comes back."

"If you say so, Dr. Jackson. Dismissed."

#

She knows there's something wrong when Landry asks Daniel to stay behind. She waits for him in his office, under the camera. Avoiding the cameras whenever possible has become second nature to her now. She doesn't _know_ that Landry ever reviews the footage from their offices. But his response to her is so odd, and if he knew that she and Daniel were ... lovers ... well...

She thinks it might disturb him.

When Daniel finally arrives he glances in, checking to see if she's there, then enters, locking his door behind him. They do a lot of that these days, in the New SGC. He puts his arms around her. Taking comfort, or needing it?

"General Landry wants to reassign you. I've told him I need your help."

"Good," she says. "Um, not like this is a surprise."

"God, this is a mess."

"He can't stand the sight of me." They're talking half at cross-purposes, but they understand each other perfectly well.

"He wants me to give him a list of appropriate presents. For the first exchange of gifts."

His comment makes her giggle. "Women," she says.

"What?"

"Fairy lore. They steal young men, they exchange babies for changelings, but the most common disappearance into the realm of the Fairies is women."

"I, ah, don't think we're going to put women on the list." Though they both know that the Furlings have already asked for one woman.

"Don't worry. I have other suggestions."

"I'll need them for next week." That's too early for her timetable. They both know it. They have no choice. She nuzzles the side of his neck, then reluctantly steps away from him. He hasn't said Landry's next move will be to refuse to let her go back to PHX-1138, so she doesn't either.

There wouldn't be any point.

#

It's the last weekend in October. The Feast of the Dead. He tells her he's going to Jack's to check on the place. (She never wants to come along.) He _does_ stop there. But then he flies to Washington. He phones Dani from the airport, telling her something's come up, he'll be away overnight. She tells him she'll be fine, sounding distant, disinterested. The drugs are taking her away from him. Anti-depressants to seal away the grief, pills to make her sleep; Brightman makes sure she takes them, and they're stealing away her _Dani_ -ness. The one thing they have to have to defeat the Furlings. Her work's been adequate but uninspired, and it's inspiration that they need right now.

And then there's General Landry's little talk after last Monday's meeting, the opening gambit that will eventually lead (he's entirely certain) to a Command Decision to send Dr. Ballard off on leave early. And _not_ send her to PHX-1138.

It's not as cold in DC as it is in Colorado Springs. He's called ahead. Jack picks him up at the airport in an SUV with tinted windows. The truck's sitting in Daniel's garage back home, unsold. Not like Jack not to make a clean break, but there you are. He hasn't put the house on the market either. It's listed with a rental agency.

"Daniel? To what do I owe?"

"Old friends?"

"There are phones."

Daniel gets into the passenger seat and they drive. Jack's not going to make this easy. Daniel can tell already.

"General Landry's decided to go ahead with negotiations with the Furlings."

"Got the memo," Jack says briefly. And can't stop him. Obviously. Which does much to explain the mood. He probably thinks Daniel's come to ask him to change Landry's mind.

"He's not going to let Dani talk to them." They've reached the Beltway. Jack's driving as if there are no other cars on the road. Daniel wonders if this is the best place for this conversation.

"That's his decision."

"It's a stupid decision."

"He'll figure it out."

"We don't have _time_ for him to figure it out! _She_ doesn't have time for him to figure it out. Brightman's got--" He stops. Takes a deep breath. Starts again. "Dr. Brightman's got Dani so drugged-up she can barely think straight. She told her it was that or MacKenzie."

"Oh, we all love MacKenzie," Jack says caustically.

"Dani thinks MacKenzie would downcheck her immediately. Maybe she's right. She's promised Dr. Brightman to take a three-month leave starting in December regardless. General Landry's using that as another excuse to keep her out of the negotiations, I'm fairly sure."

Why? He doesn't know. It's not that General Landry's a bad man, or -- precisely -- a fool. General Landry, Daniel realizes with growing insight, behaves as if the SGC is what it seems to be so often: someplace safe, quiet, and civilized, far from trouble. A place that can be run with a different kind of discipline than what he's become used to. General Hammond was Old School. No denying that. But the SGC is -- still -- the front lines, and he acted accordingly. But the _Goa'uld_ are gone, and winds of change are blowing through the SGC. In a way, they're right back where they were a decade ago: Washington wants all the benefits -- meaning technology and weapons -- that the Stargate Program can provide, to offset the enormous cost of running it all these years, of fighting a secret war. Landry's only following orders. After Jack, having someone in command of the SGC who follows orders is probably a relief in Washington, but the timing sucks.

"December's after you go back to PHX-1138." Jack knows the exact date as well as he does.

"Yeah, well, Landry wants to assign her to Cataloguing and Translation until then. So far I've assured him she's vital to what I'm doing."

"Going for coffee, things like that?"

Daniel says nothing.

"Daniel, what do you want me to do? I don't run the place any more, remember?"

"I want you to take her through the Gate."

Jack turns to stare at him at the same time he slews the SUV -- violently, without warning -- down a left-hand exit ramp. Behind them, horns blare. "I'm not hearing this," he says, returning his gaze to the road. Outside the Beltway, it's almost rural.

"I went to her universe the last time I was Ascended and gave them warning of Anubis' attack so she'd be sent back here. And I don't know why. But it's got to be important. She's the only thing Raven and Coyote have asked for. And Landry's ignoring that."

" _General_ Landry," Jack says. As if Daniel needed reminding.

"Just go through the Gate and inspect something. Take her along."

" _Daniel._ We are not having this conversation. Because I _can't_ have this conversation. Do you understand?" Jack's voice is harsh, urgent.

Daniel doesn't understand. But then he's never understood Jack, any more than Jack, he supposes, has understood him. What they've had, in place of that, was trust. Respect. Something closer than friendship. _We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..._

"Sure."

They arrive at the house Jack has rented, and talk of other things for a few hours. He makes time to see Sam, too, while he's there. He just catches her. She's leaving for Area 51 on Monday. She's the new head of R&D.

He tells her everything's fine.

He hopes it will be.

#

It's ten days since Daniel's been to Washington. In less than two weeks ... someone will go to PHX-1138.

General O'Neill of Homeworld Security is touring the SGC today. It was on the morning announcements. Daniel hasn't said anything to Dani, either about having gone to Washington, or about his plan. He can't say it, any more than Jack could listen to it. He only hopes she can figure it out, even in her current condition.

It's a crazy plan. If she's crazy, maybe insanity's catching. If the Furlings are crazy, maybe they need to be, too.

"Hey, Daniel. Dana."

"Jack."

Daniel's in Dani's office. She works better these days when someone's with her. Jack steps in. General Landry follows. Two SFs wait in the hall. Daniel thinks of them, unkindly, as the Praetorian Guard.

"Come to see what you've been up to," Jack says. Daniel's ready for this. He's never been able to lie well or easily, but telling the truth to confuse the enemy ... _that_ he's good at.

"Well, this thing on PHX-1138, mostly. But about a month ago SG-12 found some fascinating ruins on PNY-478."

"'Ruins'," Jack says, obviously wondering why Daniel's telling him this.

"Yeah. It looks like a sports arena of some kind."

"Sports." Jack doesn't have to fake his interest now. They've found temples, ruined cities, graveyards, monuments. Almost nothing dedicated to play. Shows you what kind of a galaxy the _Goa'uld_ created.

"It's, ah, pretty well preserved. You could practically play a game there right now, if you could figure out the rules. I haven't had time to get around to doing the translations yet."

"Sounds worth taking another look at."

"Would you like to see it, Jack? Take a trip through the Gate just for old times' sake?" Landry asks. Obviously hoping to turn the loose cannon visiting dignitary up sweet. "Dr. Jackson could go along and take a stab at that translation for you."

"Gee, I'd love to, General, but as you know, I'm really tied up here. But Dr. Ballard isn't doing anything. Why doesn't she go?"

"Great," Jack says, before Landry can object. "Dana, see you at the Gate in fifteen. Be on time."

The Generals and the SFs move on. For a moment, the two of them are alone. Daniel turns to her. She's staring at him, looking more confused than anything else.

"You have to go now," he says. "There won't be another chance." He wills her to understand everything he can't say.

She takes a deep breath. Nods. Kisses him quickly, just a brush of lips, not caring for once if they're in view of the cameras.

And goes to gear up.

#

It's just a quick sightseeing tour of a planet that's been thoroughly checked out. No need for a medical evaluation ahead of time. No need to notify Dr. Brightman. She isn't even carrying a field pack, just wearing her utility vest. It's still stuffed full of things from whenever the last time was she wore it on a mission. She's added a couple of notebooks and some pens and pencils, out of habit. Gun, knife, canteen. They'll all be useful where she's going.

General Landry's sending a couple of Marines with them, of course.

She knows nothing at all about PNY-478.

The wormhole is established. They walk up to the Gate and go through.

The destination Gate is just outside what Daniel described as a 'sports arena,' and in fact, it looks very much like one. The outer walls are well-preserved. They're covered with writing. The letters look very similar to Greek. She pulls a notebook and pen out of her vest and walks over to the nearest one, running her hands over it to brush away the dust. The letters are still sharp and clear, deeply-incised. She actually feels awake for the first time since she can remember.

"Why don't you guys go on ahead? I'll see what I can get out of this and catch up to you." It seems to be the rules to a game. She's almost sure of that. The letters dance before her, forming words half-grasped. _Ludos. To play._ She thinks that may be it...

"You do that," Jack tells her. He leads the Marines off into the complex. She hears Jack's voice echo through the ruins.

She forces herself to break away from the translation. Turns and runs back to the Gate. Dials the first address she can think of.

And jumps through.

#

Sports arena.

Pretty sure.

He hopes Daniel knows what he's doing. Dani looked like she was drunk.

The seats are gone -- if there _were_ seats -- but the stone tiers they probably rested on are still here. Whatever game was played here was played on grass. There are some kind of goal posts at each end. Looks like Red against White. There's even an announcer's box. He walks up into the stands. The Marines dutifully follow.

"So who do you boys like in the finals?" Jack asks, gesturing at the shapes carved into the walls. "The pointy-looking bird things, or--" They hear the sound of the Stargate activating. The Marines turn and stare at him. He plays his part, turning and running back toward the Stargate. They get there just in time to see the wormhole vanish. The DHD is dark. No way to tell what address was dialed. One of the Marines dials home as Jack tries to raise Dr. Ballard on his radio, but it's pretty obvious she isn't here. And a moment later, they're told that she hasn't gone back to Earth.

He sends his IDC and they step through. Time to play it out to the bitter end.

Hank's furious, but there's no one to blame.

"What was I supposed to do, Hank? Put a guard on her? She's been on the Teams for what? Almost three years?" O'Neill's tone is aggrieved. But this isn't his problem and everyone in the room knows it. And Hank _did_ give her permission to go.

He's been reading the reports. He's drowning in paperwork, actually, but he always makes time for the SGC. Everything's going pretty smoothly here -- Hank's a good man; he wouldn't have picked him to run the place if he hadn't thought he could do the job -- but he wants to make his mark on his new command and he wants a good working relationship with the Chiefs.

He hasn't spent the last ten years going through the Gate.

So when the orders came down to negotiate with the Furlings, all of O'Neill's advice went right out the window. He'd done his damnedest to change the orders, but it all comes down to Dani's opinion. It's not enough for anyone but him.

"Dr. Jackson, did _you_ know what she was going to do?" Hank asks.

"Me?"

"Well she's you. You ought to know."

Daniel's furious. O'Neill can see the muscle in his jaw twitch as he grits his teeth. But he doesn't say anything, which would be an answer for anyone who knew Daniel at all. As Hank obviously does not. Daniel is an employee, not a friend. O'Neill suspects they haven't been getting on well, though Daniel hasn't said. But what Hank's said now isn't something he should have brought up in a room full of people not cleared for that information.

"Do you know where she's gone?" Hank asks. He thinks he's just rephrasing the question. Daniel, of course, thinks of it as an entirely different question.

"I have no idea, General."

That, O'Neill knows, is the truth. But it's obvious where she'll be, and when. Even Hank should think of it eventually. O'Neill has no problem with letting him figure out the answer himself; he thinks a few speed-bumps might help Hank settle in here. He also knows it will be a waste of time to go looking for her. Daniel knows more Gate addresses than anyone. And Dani knows everything Daniel knows. If she can keep moving, if she doesn't get hurt -- or killed -- in the next two weeks, she'll be on PHX-1138 to keep her appointment with the Furlings. She and Daniel both think that's important enough to take this risk, and he, god help him, agrees. He just hopes he can keep her out of prison when it's over. He's pretty sure he can talk Hank out of pressing charges.

"Well, I'm having her IDC locked out of the computer as of now," Hank says. "And as soon as we find her--"

"It won't matter," Daniel says. Hank glares at him.

 _Be careful, Danny Boy,_ O'Neill thinks. Hank's temper is legendary. He likes to yell at his command. O'Neill knows that Daniel won't take well to that at all.

"Locking her IDC out of the Base computer. She wasn't carrying a GDO. She isn't on a Gate Team any more, so she doesn't have one."

That much is true. He was carrying one, and so were both Marines. She wasn't.

"I want her found." Hank's starting to repeat himself. It's time to go.

"Well, I'm really sorry about this little problem of yours, Hank, and I hope it works out for you. But I'd better be getting back to Washington. Shame about 478, though. Looked interesting."

#

She keeps moving. In the first two hours she visits half-a-dozen worlds, until the changes of time and season make her dizzy. She pauses on one long enough to cut herself a quarterstaff, trimming it down with her KBar and stripping off the outer bark. The work takes her a couple of hours, but when she's done she has a weapon that won't run out of ammo. No one said anything when she took her Beretta through the Gate, but it only has two spare clips, and she's really hoping she won't have to shoot anything.

Bullets are so final.

When it's done she checks it for balance, spinning through a few basic figures, and only convinces herself that she needs a lot more exercise than she's been getting. Still, she'll fight if she has to.

She goes back to the Gate and dials her next destination. Her choice is an obvious one, but it also promises shelter and safety. Still, they might be waiting for her there, and her heart beats fast as she dials. But she needs a safe place to spend the night. She has to work the drugs out of her system so she can think clearly again. That's what Daniel wanted for her -- and for her to make the rendezvous they both know she must make -- and somehow he got Jack to help. She hopes they're both all right. Jack's a General. His rank will protect him, and the plausible deniability of the scenario that he and Daniel constructed between them. Daniel, well ... he's a survivor, as is she. She has to count on that. But she doesn't know, and might never know. She resigns herself to that. This is the most covert of covert missions. She has to complete it.

"Time to save the world, Indy," she says aloud. _Yes, Jack. Time to save the world._

What do the Furlings want? She doesn't know, and she's running out of time to figure it out. That they want to talk to her is the only thing of which she's certain, and if the Furlings are forced to come to the SGC for her -- if she isn't there at all -- things could get ... ugly. That can't be allowed to happen. That's why she's here.

The event horizon stabilizes and she steps through.

She's on Kheb.

Again.

She stands on the white stone path that leads away from the Gate for a long time before she can make herself walk forward. But they wouldn't bother to ambush her, would they? They'd just zat her as soon as she appeared, and drag her back to the SGC.

It's an hour before sunset here. The temple that Daniel described is kliks from the Gate, and the light's failing fast. She resigns herself to a long cold night in the woods -- and an unpleasant one, too, filled with her personal demons. You're supposed to stop taking the medications she's on slowly, not stop them all at once.

Why did she let them do that to her? She should have outfaced Brightman, stared down MacKenzie. The Furlings were asking for her by name. That was her hole card. She should have played it. Only she didn't trust any of them -- not Brightman, not MacKenzie, not Landry -- to act in their own best interests. They'd be happy to bundle her off somewhere and realize it was all a dreadful mistake when it was too late. If she survives this, she's through at the SGC, she knows that. She's probably going to prison. The thought makes her laugh out loud. No more pills, no more regulations, no more MacKenzie. She won't miss them.

She looks up at the sweep of alien stars through the canopy of leaves. She _will_ miss this. And Daniel...

She hopes there will be Daniel on the other side of all this. Just as she hopes that when Ma'at has weighed her heart against a feather and ushers her into the Halls of the Dead, Jack will be there. Probably not his idea of a good afterlife, though. Although there's beer there.

She continues through the forest -- with no idea of where she's going, just following the path of least resistance -- until it's too dark to see at all. Then she stops, and sits down right where she is, balancing her staff across her knees. And waits.

It's cold, and she shivers. With a full pack, she'd have more survival gear, but why would she take a full pack on a sightseeing expedition? Besides, she's not on a Gate Team now; she doesn't have most of the gear. Including the GDO, which she doesn't need and doesn't miss. That she still has a gun, a knife, and a canteen is simple bureaucratic oversight. Anyway, she had to pay for the gun. It's hers.

She checks through the contents of her vest by touch. She stuffed so many things into it so long ago that she's forgotten what's there.

Pens. String. Water-purification tablets. Kleenex. Antihistamines. Aspirin. T-3s. Power Bars. Chocolate. Pencils. Notebooks. Sunblock. Chapstick. A mirror. A grenade (should have turned that in to Ordinance). A folding pocket knife. Gum. Chalk. Some rubber bands. A sealed packet of moist antiseptic towelettes. She's completely prepared for any minor emergency to be encountered on the streets of a major American city. Or to blow something up.

She eats a Power Bar and some chocolate, and finishes the water in her canteen, dropping one of the tablets into the empty container when she's through. She can hear a stream nearby. She'll fill the canteen again from that as soon as there's light to see. She does not think past that. For a very long time, thinking has only brought unanswerable questions, confusion, and pain.

Eventually the moon -- _moons_ \-- rise. They're full, and they give a lot of light. Earth has definitely been short-changed in the moon department. Most of the other planets they've visited have two -- or more. It's enough light for her to find the stream. She kneels on the bank and fills her canteen, and sloshes the water around to dissolve the tablet. It will be at least half an hour before the water inside is safe to drink, and then it will taste bitter, but she won't pick up any horrible wild-water ailments from it. She isn't sure what she'll do when she runs out of tablets. She doesn't have enough to last her until her rendezvous on PHX-1138. Or enough food.

General Landry -- or his designated representatives -- will certainly be waiting for her on PHX-1138. But her watch is set to SGC time, so if she comes through the Gate on 1138 at local noon, she's pretty sure that Coyote and Raven will ... intercede ... to keep her from being taken away before they've had a chance to talk to her. If they don't, this has all been for nothing.

 _If you don't bet, you can't win._

"Dammit, Jack, you're dead. Can't you at least give me some _useful_ advice?"

 _Play for time, Indiana._

"That's what I'm doing now." She gets to her feet, hooking the canteen back on her belt. Leans on her staff, looking around. There's a light in the forest. The Stargate activating? No. She's too far away to see the Stargate now, and the light is small and steady. The wrong color.

What?

She can either stand out here all night -- or sit -- freezing, or head for the light. Not really much of a choice. She walks toward it. Slowly. Feeling her way with her staff.

#

It's not _a_ light. It's several. The lanterns of a ... temple. The temple of Kheb, the one she looked for so long and so hard on the Other Side and never found. She walks toward it, hardly believing it's here now. There's a white stone path leading up to a courtyard. The architectural motifs look faintly Oriental, a mixture of Japanese, Korean, even Thai influences. The gateway resembles the arch of the Stargate. There are more lanterns burning in the courtyard.

As she steps through the archway, the door to the temple opens. There's a monk standing there. Well, a baby monk. It's a child. He can't be more than eight years old.

"Why have you come?" he asks. His voice is high with childhood. His English is faultless. She listens for the sound of other languages beneath it, and hears nothing.

"To hide." It isn't what she meant to say.

"One cannot hide from the truth," he answers.

"I'm not hiding from the truth. I'm just hiding." She's walked several miles today. It's more exercise than she's had in a long time. Physical exhaustion and the enormity of the bridges she's burned leaves her feeling stunned, disconnected.

"From what do you hide?" the boy asks.

She finds she really has to think about that one. "There are people who don't like the truth when they hear it," she says. It's the short answer. Jack liked short answers. "I made them unhappy."

"All people should seek truth."

"But they don't," she says. "And sometimes, it's the wrong time to tell them the truth." On the Critical Path, everything has to be done in the right way at the right time.

"That is also a truth," the boy says. "Come. You will be safe here. But you must leave your weapons outside."

Weapons.

She drops her gunbelt, only to discover that it's still attached to her leg by the tie-down. With a little fumbling she unclips that as well, and sets it aside. She pulls her knife from its sheath and sets it beside the gun. What else is she carrying that he might consider a weapon? She isn't sure. She does the simplest thing, and takes off her entire vest, dropping it on top of the gunbelt. She hopes it will be there in the morning; she'll need some of the things in it. Especially the antihistamines, when the last shot Brightman gave her for her allergies wears off.

She crosses the courtyard and ascends the steps.

"That as well," the boy says, nodding toward her staff. She sighs and props it against the wall. He smiles and bows. She bows back. They enter. Inside, the building seems bigger than it did on the outside, though since she only saw the front, she really has no way of knowing if her impression's valid. The motifs have changed, too, more South Asian, less Oriental.

"You will wish to sleep," he tells her. It's true; that's all she wants to do right now. She can barely keep her eyes open as he leads her down a hallway -- pale gold walls covered with glyphs, red pillars, black floor, it's like being in a lacquer box -- to a room lit with several dozen candles. In the middle there's a platform, veiled in gauze, that looks as if it's piled with several feather beds. She stops in the doorway. He turns back and takes her hand, leading her inside. His touch is a shock. She'd just assumed he was one of the Ascended, but she knows they're intangible. This is a real human boy.

"You will sleep here. You will be safe."

"Who are you? Where are your parents?"

Once again he gives her that calm composed smile. "You will know."

"When?"

"When it is time."

Ascended or not, he's certainly cryptic enough, but right now she doesn't care. When he leaves, she sits down on the bed, sinking down deep into the feather beds, and pulls off her boots and socks. Next comes her jacket. She hesitates a moment, then pulls off her pants as well. If it comes to a fight, she's unarmed and she'll be buried under feather bedding. She might as well be reasonably comfortable. She folds her clothes in a neat pile on the floor and crawls between two of the feather beds. She can't figure out how to extinguish the candles, so she doesn't bother.

It's the best sleep she can remember having in a long time, but it isn't free of dreams.

#

 _The ha'tak sits atop Cheyenne Mountain. Anubis' Command ship. Four others hover bizarrely above it. It's unreal that things so large can simply defy gravity. Each one is larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza. _

_Suddenly the Mountain explodes in light. Up, then out, unfolding like a deadly flower. The five ships are gone._

 _The blast-front races out further. Five miles. Ten. Fifty. Re-destroying things Anubis' attack has already destroyed. Colorado Springs is gone. There's nothing left but glass._

The dream should horrify her. Instead, it gives her comfort, even though -- in the dream -- she knows Anubis ringed out to a ship outside the blast-radius a moment before the explosion. But he lost his greatest prizes. His greatest chances for revenge.

She dreams it again.

'Dreams teach.' Someone said that to her once. Who?

Dreams heal.

#

 _Her wedding day._

 _Not as awkward having Sara there as she'd thought it might be. She'd refused to wear the long white dress and veil. Sammy was disappointed. She'd suggested that Sammy could marry Jack if she was so interested in the dress. Sammy quoted fraternization guidelines at her, doing her best to keep a straight face._

 _Jack said that if he was going to have to wear his dress uniform, she might as well look ridiculous too. She'd ignored him. No white. She'd worn pale blue. It was long. It looked like a prom dress to her -- not that she'd ever been to a prom. She felt she looked pretty ridiculous anyway. Nobody else seemed to agree._

 _They had years together. Rank hath its privileges; they retired off-world. Somewhere warm. They could never go back to Earth -- that was part of the deal -- but that didn't matter. Earth had never really been home to her. Where Jack was, that was home._

Dreams.

#

 _She's going to have a baby. Not really her intention. (Not exactly possible, after Hathor.)_

 _But._

 _SG-15 found another Weird Alien Temple. On the way in, they'd all been caught in a ray of purple light for several minutes. They weren't able to figure out what it was, but it didn't seem to do them any harm. They finished their survey, left SG-13 to the detail work, and went home. Brightman passed them all as medically fit._

 _By the time SG-13 figures out what the purple ray is, the damage -- so to speak -- is done. Brightman calls them all back for an even more thorough physical. Ultrasound. CAT-scan. Paul has his appendix again. So does she. Jimmy has his tonsils. She also has a positive pregnancy test, because her appendix isn't the only thing she's gotten back._

 _Daniel's stunned at first, then pleased. Their baby will grow up with two loving parents. There's no reason it shouldn't be healthy. They're genetically identical, but genes shuffle in every generation. It will undoubtedly have a gift for languages._

#

 _The ha'tak sits atop Cheyenne Mountain... _

#

She awakens all at once. That in itself is odd; she's never been a morning person. It takes her a few moments to orient herself, even so. Unfamiliar bed. Unfamiliar planet. Kheb. Sunlight's shining in through windows she overlooked last night. The candles are all extinguished, but they didn't burn down. She finds her glasses. Puts them on. Dresses. Carrying her boots -- some cultures have taboos against footwear indoors, and now that she thinks about it, the boy-monk she saw last night was barefoot -- she retraces her steps of the night before. The temple's deserted, but there's a low table set out in the main room. On it is a pitcher, a cup, a bowl of fruit, and a plate with a loaf.

It seems she's to eat.

She sits cross-legged in front of the table, and picks up one of the fruits. It's red and round, slightly soft. She bites it experimentally, wondering if you're supposed to peel it first. Apparently not; the skin's very thin. It has the starchy consistency of a cooked yam. Not overpoweringly sweet. It tastes like ... fruit. It's good; she finishes two with the first real appetite she remembers having in ages before turning to the bread. Obviously whole-grain, apparently freshly-baked. She eats half the loaf and drinks all the water in the pitcher. It's water, and it tastes pure, though she knows that's no guarantee. On the other hand, she's just eaten the local food, so she might as well go all the way.

Still no monk.

She gets up, wondering if she should just leave. South Asian cultures aren't her primary field, and this is certainly no Buddhist temple, but she seems to remember that the temples would provide a night of food and lodging to any peaceful traveler. She's had that.

She doesn't have to make up her mind immediately.

She goes out onto the portico, and sits down to put on her boots. Her vest and weapons are still lying where she left them, a good sign. She collects her staff and starts down the steps.

"Will you return to the temple tonight?"

The monklet's snuck up behind her. She glances over her shoulder. "Should I come back?"

"Do you wish to return?"

Why does he keep asking questions that make her think? Yes, she wants to come back. But that's not as important as staying free and keeping him safe. "The things I don't want are as important as the things I do."

"All desire must be brought into harmony in order to walk the Great Path."

She turns around to face him. "Yeah ... When I figure out how to do that, I'll come and tell you, okay?"

"I shall be waiting." He bows. She bows. He closes the door.

"Hey -- wait!" _You still haven't told me your name._ But the door doesn't reopen.

She shrugs and goes to collect the rest of her things. It's spring on Kheb. She goes for a walk. Takes care of basic needs. Thinks. They were approaching the Furling problem all wrong. Not that Landry gave them any other choice. It's not about what the Furlings want. It's about what _they_ want. What _do_ they want?

For the Furlings to go away.

Why?

Because the Furlings are offering them dangerous gifts.

 _Why_ are they dangerous?

 _Because we don't have the wisdom to use them without courting our own destruction. And -- Raven and Coyote -- you know that. You gave these same gifts to the Goa'uld, a long time ago, didn't you? Daniel thinks so. You led them to the treasury of the Ancients and helped them plunder it. Is that what happened?_

Do the Furlings hope to give the _Tau'ri_ the same gifts and reach a different outcome?

 _It's not possible. We and the Goa'uld are still too much alike. Someday we won't be. We can still change. They can't. But we can only change if you leave us alone now._

She realizes this as if she's known it all along. The pieces of the puzzle she has been grasping after for so many days fall into place with a simple inevitability.

The Ascended _know_. Not all, but more than corporeal minds can hold. Yet they don't use what they know. Daniel tried, and was cast out. The Furlings manipulated her. They gave her, in mortal form, a version of the knowledge of the Ascended, with no constraints against using it, and none of the wisdom. And so she used it. Badly.

Perhaps her world, her universe, would have survived if SG-1 had died on Kelowna. Perhaps it would have vanished sooner. Perhaps it hasn't vanished at all. It may yet endure, but -- if she's dreamed true -- she has no stake in it now. Anubis may pause to plunder the remains of Earth of slaves and future hosts, but he'll certainly end by destroying it utterly. Her future -- her fate -- is here. As Daniel ... prophesied.

 _A Daniel come to judgment,_ she thinks, entertaining herself with the play on words. Her thoughts return to the Furlings as she walks on. This is what she -- _they_ \-- need from the Furlings, and why they need it. She knows they'll bargain. But what does her side have to bargain with?

 _Me. I think. I hope._

"We'll find out, won't we, Jack? Daniel?"

She finds a clearing, practices basic forms with her quarterstaff until she's dripping with sweat and shaking. She's not sure whether she's detoxing -- though at the moment she feels clear-headed and perfectly alert -- or if she's just really out of condition. She finds the stream and resigns herself to a cold bath, following it until she finds a place that's deep enough. She wishes she'd packed a toothbrush and soap.

She strips off, taking her socks and underclothes into the water with her to rinse them. (She doubts there's a Laundromat anywhere on Kheb.) She wrings out her t-shirt and other things as hard as she can -- god bless indestructible military issue -- and hangs them on a tree to do what they can about drying, then wades back into the stream and scrubs herself all over with a handful of grass. Not all that much she can do about her hair. She really should have gotten it cut.

Afterward she air-dries for as long as she can bear to, then sits on her pants, wearing her jacket, and eats some more of her rations. She drains the canteen. The water tastes just as bad as she remembers it. She counts the tablets she has left. Five. After they're gone she either has to risk the local water wherever she is, or go somewhere she knows the water's safe. She has two Power Bars and a candy bar left. Say food for another day. Or two.

She could go to Edora. She hasn't been to this one, but SG-1 has. They're friendly people, and they need hands to work the fields. They'd feed her in exchange for labor. But they have a treaty with Earth, and a GDO. Laira might turn her in.

Tollana isn't here, and she can't reach the Nox without the Tollen.

Dakara? A very long shot, and she knows there's an SGC presence there.

Chulak? She knows the lay of the land there, and what's edible. It's a possibility, if she could stay out of sight of the Jaffa.

Any of the uninhabited worlds they've been to would be a safer bet. They did soil and botanical surveys on a number of them. Most of them were stocked by the _Goa'uld_ with complete Terran ecosystems. She can live off the land. Just pick one where it's summer, so she doesn't freeze. And keep an eye on the time.

But where she _wants_ to go is back to the temple. Is there a real reason not to? Is she endangering the boy by staying? Landry will want her head on a plate. She's certain of that. He'll be looking for her, or at least he'll try. But even if Jack was able to see the destination she dialed, she covered her tracks very thoroughly. She isn't sure even Daniel would expect her to go to Kheb. And if he does figure it out, he won't say.

What if Landry figures it out anyway? Just suppose.

Can the temple hide itself? Would she have enough warning to take to the hills? Hide until whoever Landry sends here to look for her goes away? There have _got_ to be more ... entities ... here than just one little boy. Who takes care of _him?_

He hasn't told her his name yet.

She gets dressed -- her underclothes are still damp -- and goes back to the temple. It's dusk. She's spent most of the day walking. She feels good.

Once again she goes through the ritual of disarmament just inside the temple gate. Gunbelt, knifebelt, vest. She props her staff against the gate, and sits down on the edge of an ornamental wall to take off her boots. Hiking in damp socks is no joke.

"Do you have an answer?"

She gets to her feet, wiggling her toes against the courtyard paving. It's smooth, still warm from the sun of the day.

"I have answers and questions."

"Then that is good. Come."

"You have to promise me you'll be safe if I stay."

"Promises are not mine to give."

"People may come here looking for me. I don't want to be responsible for putting you in danger."

"No one can be responsible for another. Each one must be responsible for himself."

"Oh if only," she mutters. If she were responsible only for herself, she wouldn't be here now. "It's on your head," she says, louder.

"Yes," he says, sounding pleased. "It is. And on yours."

She sighs, and follows him inside.

"You will wish to bathe," he assures her. "Then we will eat."

"You don't do everything around here all by yourself, do you?" she asks. "There must be other ... monks?"

He smiles and takes her hand again, leading her down a corridor she doesn't remember seeing before. He doesn't answer.

#

The bathhouse is outside, a separate building. Much more in the Japanese style than anything she's seen so far. Beyond it she sees a second, smaller, structure of obvious utility. At the steps he bows, leaving her to find her own way. She goes inside, reviews the interior cautiously. She's dealt with alien plumbing on a hundred worlds. Some have been easy to figure out. Some not.

There's a large steaming bath, big enough to hold a Roman Emperor and several of his favorite concubines, and for just a moment, she thinks of PNX-194. The mission was horrible, but the plumbing was nice. There's an empty wooden bucket as big as a washtub. A wooden bench piled with towels. A pitcher. A dun-colored egg-shaped object that smells like soap. Small rough cloths. A drain in the middle of the slatted wooden floor.

She removes her clothes -- again. This time it's harder, as they're damp, and stick. Dips water out of the soaking bath until she has a few inches at the bottom of the wooden tub. Uses that to soak down a couple of the washcloths and soap herself all over. She even does her hair. Then she pours more water over herself, rinsing off the soap. It's hard to rinse her hair, but she manages. Then, clean, she steps into the soaking bath. She may have this wrong, but the room looks Japanese, and in Japan, one is clean _before_ getting into the bath.

She slides all the way down under the water, holding her breath. It's deep enough for her to float. She doesn't regret her cold bath in the river, but this is ... very nice.

Eventually she realizes that she ought to come out and get dressed so that the nameless monk-boy can have his dinner. When she goes over to the pile of towels, she realizes the top items on the pile aren't towels at all. They're a tunic and pants. At least she won't have to put on the same damp and starting to be very grubby clothes. Maybe she can find a way to wash them.

Dry and dressed, carrying her uniform, she goes back into the temple. The boy is waiting at the same table at which she ate breakfast.

"I'm sorry I took so long," she says.

"Time is meaningless," he answers.

"Time is not meaningless if you have somewhere to be."

"But I am already here."

She gives up on the game of 'cap-the-Zen- _koan'_ and checks out what's for dinner. In addition to the breakfast menu, there's a clear salty soup. So somebody has to be doing the cooking. There are no utensils. She follows his lead and drinks from the bowl.

"Now come. Sit with me."

She's already noticed the sand-pit in the middle of the floor. Its frame is made up of two interlocking squares; an eight-pointed figure. The black sand harmonizes with the blackness around it. There's an unlit candle there now that wasn't there before. They sit down on either side of it. He passes his hand above the wick once. The candle lights. He does it again. There is no flame.

"Now, you."

Daniel described this in his report on Kheb. "No." The boy looks at her, waiting patiently. "When I told you I came here to hide, that was why I came. I didn't come here to Ascend. I ... can't." Though _something_ happened when Daniel came to her on the Other Side, years ago.

"All beings seek the Great Path."

She sighs. "But some beings get lost on their way to the 7-11." Jack would say that. It makes her smile. "Don't you think Daniel tried? He did, you know. At least ... I think he did. But I couldn't. Didn't. Haven't." She thinks about the plastic cage; her abduction. Seeing Daniel. It wasn't a dream; she knows he must have helped her escape. But whatever happened is scrambled, irrecoverable. She shakes her head. "And anyway, what I have to do ... soon ... requires a certain lack of wisdom. I guess you'd say that's the whole point. It's timing, you know. If you don't do things at the right time, you might as well not do them."

The boy inclines his head. "Sometimes that is true." He lights the candle again with another wave of his hand. "Then we will sit. And you will tell me of Daniel."

She remembers the first time Other-Sammy talked to her about Daniel. "Well ... he has fish..."

#

'Tense' is a word that might describe the SGC after Jack leaves, or maybe it's just him.

It's the day after Dani left. The house was lonely last night. Daniel's trying not to wonder where she slept, in case he guesses right and some strange propinquity allows others to reach the same conclusion. Sam's emailed him -- tactfully and cryptically -- from Area 51, asking how things are. He can read between the lines; news of Dani's unscheduled departure has gotten out. He tells her he's fine. It's true. In two weeks he's going to PHX-1138, and either she'll be there or she won't. There isn't much more he can do on the Furling proposals. All the research is done. The groundwork's laid. And they aren't going to work anyway. (It's not as if he hasn't been in this position before.) It's really all up to Dani now. But playing 'Let's Pretend' is the only thing he can do to keep her safe, so he continues to fine-tune useless clauses and lists of worthless gifts.

"I heard about what happened when General O'Neill was here," Charlie says, coming into his office. SG-9's been offworld for the last ten days, setting up a complicated mining treaty. They came back to discover that Dr. Ballard's gone AWOL and General Landry's demanding heads. Charlie sits down without waiting to be asked. "She's really gone?" he asks.

"As far as I know. I think General Landry might mention it if he'd managed to find her."

Charlie hesitates for a moment. "I know who she is, Daniel. The meeting's in a week. She's supposed to be there. You heard them asking for her. She said she'd be there."

Daniel raises his eyebrows, but says nothing. Charlie is SG-9's anthropologist, but he's also an Air Force Officer. Don't ask, don't tell. "At least it's not your problem," he says at last, deciding on the safest of several possible responses. "General Landry's decided to have me oversee the first exchange of gifts."

"Leaving us to clean up after you," Charlie says, after a pause. Daniel looks bland. If this meeting goes wrong he isn't sure anybody's going to have any cleaning up to do at all. Charlie studies him, and Daniel knows what he's thinking: _You wouldn't run out on something like this with everyone counting on you. Why did she?_

"Don't worry about it," Daniel says. "I'm sure everything will work out."

After a long moment, Charles Saunders gets up and leaves.

#

Dr. Brightman bears the brunt of the official displeasure. A member of the SGC has gone AWOL, and someone must be blamed. Dr. Brightman counters, reasonably and accurately, that Dr. Ballard wasn't certified to go through the Gate at all. That she was overstressed and on both tranquilizers and antidepressants pending medical leave. Both these things are part of the Official Record. Brightman is covered.

Dr. MacKenzie is consulted, and he gives it as his opinion that she should never have been allowed to return to work at all without a formal psychiatric evaluation; certainly not on a project of this importance. No matter what General Jack O'Neill thought.

Daniel relies heavily on his reputation (legend, really, heading quickly toward myth) as a vague academic idiot. It's as false -- and as useful -- as Jack's _persona_ of happy-go-lucky Neanderthal; a man barely able to understand why he was at Cheyenne Mountain in the first place, let alone comprehend the subtleties of the Stargate Program. Jack was General Hammond's second in command for almost ten years and people still took him at face value, confirming Daniel's long-held opinion that most people simply aren't that analytical. Or, in fact, that bright. He uses his own _persona_ now, saying he had no idea Dr. Ballard was under that much stress. Her work was good. She'd been fine the last time she'd made the transition between dimensions.

No one questions him further.

All the Gate Teams have orders to look for Dr. Ballard during the course of their regular missions and to apprehend her at all costs. General Landry doesn't quite say 'dead or alive,' but it's hard not to get that impression. Of course, there are very few of the Teams that she hasn't worked with at one time or another. Daniel really doubts anybody's going to shoot her.

And despite Landry's current posturing -- despite his wrongheaded take on the Furling puzzle -- Daniel has to admit -- very grudgingly -- that Landry isn't the worst possible commander the SGC could have. Bauer had been a nightmare, and Elizabeth Weir, while far better than Bauer, hadn't been that good for the SGC either. Landry's better than either of them. He cares about the people under his command, and intends to keep them safe. It's just the learning curve that's rough -- for everyone. And the fact that with the destruction of Anubis, the mission of the SGC is -- inevitably -- changing.

He thinks longingly of Atlantis. He's sure Dani would like it there.

#

They talk about Daniel. They talk about Jack.

She gets up in the morning when the light wakes her. The boy is never there. She dresses, eats, spends the day roaming the woods near the temple, working out with her quarterstaff, planning. In the evening she walks back to the temple and bathes. Eats the same simple meal each evening. She tells the boy about knowing Daniel.

Learning Daniel.

She tells him about Jack, too. Her Jack, the one she knows best. It exorcises the pain, tidies away the memories until the time comes when she'll need them again. She finds no incongruity in speaking of these things to a child. He's more than that, but it's not time for her to know how much more.

Timing is everything.

And at last it's time for her to go.

#

She gets up. Dresses. Her uniform is clean and ready for her. This morning he's waiting for her at breakfast.

"I don't know when I'll be back," she says.

"But you will return." He sounds certain of it.

"When it is time," she answers. He smiles.

She sits down on the portico to put on her boots one last time. Stands, and takes up her quarterstaff.

"Goodbye, Shifu."

"Goodbye, Mother's sister."

She walks out through the gate, leaving her weapons behind. She will not need them.

#

SGs 3, 5, and 11 come through at local dawn to start setting up the site for the new discussions with the Furlings. The pavilion they've brought is large and gaudy in red, white, and blue, with SGC banners hanging from three of the inside walls. The fourth wall's open. The table's round, but there are only four chairs. There's the usual camera and recording equipment. They've piled gifts on side-tables: chocolate, coffee, tobacco; wine, mead, and whiskey. Gold, silver, and precious gems -- the SGC has plenty of that in Stores, enough to destabilize the world's economy, actually. Enough to put on quite a show here. Swords. Bolts of cloth: silk, linen, wool. Sufficient _largesse_ to stun any Bronze Age King.

There's also a whole roast pig, but they're bringing that through at the last minute.

Daniel came through with the others. He couldn't sleep last night. He's gone beyond worry, actually, into whatever state that might be. Zen anxiety, maybe. Hard to think he could achieve it without people shooting at him, but there it is. And odd to be on a pastoral alien planet in his best suit, but here _he_ is. Good thing he's brought an umbrella, because even with his raincoat, he'd be soaked to the skin quickly. The rain isn't heavy, but it has a penetrating quality. At least the coat and tie exempts him from the heavy lifting.

As if the fact he's about to face the Furlings without knowing whether Dani's going to be here weren't enough, yesterday General Landry told him he wants to sit in on the negotiations. There's been no way to talk him out of it. Ignoring the potential for disaster of having the CIC of the SGC offworld at all, if Landry opens his mouth at the wrong time in front of the Furlings, they're all toast.

Who is he kidding? If they get to the point where he and Landry are the ones sitting at the table with Raven and Coyote, they're toast anyway.

He wonders where Dani is. He hopes she's alive. He hopes she's figured out what the Furlings _want_.

He closes his umbrella and goes and stands under the Furling-built pavilion, watching the preparations.

#

It's one minute to noon. He and General Landry are standing inside the SGC pavilion. SG-3 stands behind them. A show of force. He recommended against that, and was overruled. They're waiting. The air is filled with the smell of roast pork.

"Are you sure they're going to show up, Dr. Jackson?"

"They seem to be very punctual, General. It's not quite--"

Suddenly Raven and Coyote are there.

"We greet you again, Daniel Jackson. And here is the Earl of the High King, Henry Landry," Coyote says, inclining his head mockingly. "But we did not ask for him. We ask for Danielle Jackson."

"On behalf of the President of the United States--" Landry begins. Behind him, a radio crackles to life. "Colonel Reynolds, we have an incoming wormhole," Colonel Harper says.

"I think that's her now," Daniel says to Coyote.

"Dr. Jackson!" General Landry barks.

"General, where did you think she'd go?" Daniel snaps. He's finally run out of patience, and in a few minutes they're probably all going to be dead anyway.

"Have her detained," General Landry tells Colonel Reynolds, but before Reynolds can relay the order, she's ... here. She shakes her head slightly, a little disoriented by the sudden shift. But she looks well, alert, even ... happy.

"We are ready to proceed," she tells Raven.

"Arrest her!" General Landry snaps. Colonel Reynolds hesitates for an instant, then steps forward to obey. And suddenly Colonel Reynolds, the rest of SG-3, the recording equipment, and General Landry are ... gone.

"What did you do with them?" Dani asks. She doesn't sound in the least worried.

"They're asleep," Coyote answers, sounding lazily amused.

"Ah ... where?" Daniel wants to know.

"By our Stargate. They are all asleep."

"They'll get wet," Dani says gravely.

"So they will, child," Raven says. "Very wet."

Dani looks around at the collection of loot on the side tables, selects a tray with four gold goblets, brings it to the table. She picks up a bottle of mead and opens it, pouring it into the cups. "We will drink together," she says, "and then we will talk." _Sorry, Daniel,_ she mouths, handing him one of the cups.

They sit. The Furlings sit. They raise their cups and drink. The mead's as sweet as cola syrup, burningly alcoholic. He drinks as little as possible.

"You have said that I bring the answer to your riddle," Dani begins. "What will you give for that answer?"

"We have brought gifts. We ask no payment, nor should you," Coyote answers. He cocks his head, regarding her slyly.

"Yet I _do_ ask payment. And I do not accept your gifts. Nor will I ever accept your gifts."

"Yet we have given you gifts, and you have taken them," Raven answers quickly. "Do you deny this?"

"Tell me what gifts you have given me, and we will discuss it." Dani's speaking English, but as if it were a foreign language. Her grammar is formal, her syntax carries the ghost of another tongue. Even her voice is pitched differently; high and sharp. As if this whole exchange is the stuff of ritual.

He hopes to god she knows what she's doing. The last time he saw her, she could barely remember where she lived.

"We have given you Daniel. We have given you Jack. We have given you love. Deny this."

"I deny this," Dani says instantly. "You cannot give what is not in your gift. Daniel is not yours to give. Jack is not yours to give. Love is not yours to give." Triple iteration. Celtic forms.

"Yet you would not know Daniel if not for my weaving," Coyote says.

"This much is true. But love was my choice and his. You did not give love. And so you speak falsely."

The Furlings lean back to their side of the table to confer. Dani calmly refills the cups, emptying the bottle.

"Careful," Daniel says.

She takes his hand. "I know."

"Let us speak of Jack," Raven says.

"If you will. It will not gain you the answer you seek."

"We gave you the courage to claim him. And you betrayed him in your heart and in his bed. He died knowing that you loved another."

Daniel glances at her, worried, but Dani's face is calm.

"My courage is my own. You gave me nothing. I owe you nothing. I betrayed Jack neither in my heart nor in his bed. If it is true that he died knowing that I loved Daniel, then the thought gave him comfort, because he returned me to my lover as his dying act. Twice now you have spoken falsely. Speak so three times and you must go with your riddles unanswered."

This time the Furlings get up and walk away from the table to confer. He can't hear what they're saying.

"Hardball," Daniel murmurs.

"They want what I've got," Dani says. He wants to ask her if she has the answer. She must think she does, and he hopes she's right. If she is, they may just all get through this alive.

The Furlings sit down again. Daniel has the impression they've been arguing, though he can't say why. They're still serene, still beautiful. The sight of them, of course, is another illusion.

"Tell us three true things that include the answer to our riddle, and you may have all you desire," Raven says.

"No," Dani says. "I will tell you three true things that include the answer to your riddle, and you will give me all I ask."

"What will you give, if we do this for you?" Coyote asks her.

"I will tell you three true things that include the answer to your riddle," Dani answers promptly. It's like arguing with lawyers, Daniel thinks. And Coyote's constantly trying to trick her.

"The bargain is made," Coyote says. "Fail, and you are ours to do with as we choose. Fail, and we begin again."

"The bargain is made," Dani agrees.

#

If he's trying to frighten her, he's succeeded. For more than seven years, he's been the creature of her nightmares. Not Anubis. _Coyote._ She looks at him now, and sees him with the head of a dog, wolf, coyote, jackal. The white teeth gleam and the red tongue lolls. But it's too late to turn back now.

"Here is the first true thing," she says. They're speaking English, but the structure and the rhetoric are from a far older tongue. "You brought me here from another place for your weaving. You chose me because I was twin to Daniel, and Daniel had Ascended. You wanted to create a human with the knowledge of the Ascended. You wanted to understand why they do as they do. I can tell you."

"Tell us," Coyote says.

"That knowledge comes at a price."

Coyote regards her for a long moment. "We will pay it."

"I have not yet set it."

"We will pay it when the time comes. My word and seal upon it."

 _'We will pay it.'_ A direct statement, and from all she's been able to learn, the Furlings simply don't lie outright.

So she'd better be right.

"Then I will speak. The Ascended have knowledge and wisdom together, so they do not act. Seeing as they do, they know that to act sometimes changes nothing, and sometimes makes things worse than if they had not acted. They would rather gain more wisdom from watching matters unfold without their interference. You gave me knowledge, but not the wisdom to use it, and so I used my knowledge without their long sight. I do not think that anything I did changed my universe's destiny."

Earth would have been destroyed by Anubis whether SG-1 survived Kelowna or not. Whether _she_ survived Kelowna or not.

"Yet the Ascended interfere in the lives of mortals." Coyote is looking at Daniel now.

Dani shrugs. "Some are young. Some are curious. In all the weavings there are, every pattern was meant to be. I have told you what you meant me to learn, and what you wished to know."

"This is truth," Raven agrees. Dani does not dare sigh with relief. She has promised them three truths.

"Here is the second truth I have promised you," Dani says, holding her voice steady with an effort. "Once, long ago, you gave great gifts to the _Goa'uld_. You wish to know if things could have gone differently than they did. I can tell you."

"Tell us." It's Raven who speaks this time.

"That knowledge comes at a price," she repeats. Both of the Furlings gaze at her. She can feel their stares, unblinking as the gaze of predators, though she knows she cannot really see their faces. The pause is longer now.

"We will pay it," Raven says.

"I have not yet set it."

"We will pay it when the time comes. My word and seal upon it."

She takes a deep breath.

"You know how matters went with the _Goa'uld_ when you led them to the repository of Ancient technology and told them to take from it as they wished. I cannot add to your knowledge there. That pattern does not change. I can tell you we are a young race, still like the _Goa'uld_ in our arrogance and avarice, yet there is this difference between us: the _Goa'uld_ cannot change their nature, and we can. If you give us all the gifts you wish to give us, we will become like the _Goa'uld_. Gift us as you have gifted the _Goa'uld_ and we will learn no more. We will grow no more. We will change no more. We will gain no further wisdom. And so I say this: matters could have gone no differently with the _Goa'uld_ once you had given them your gifts. To give the gift changes the giver and the receiver both."

"Yet the _Tok'ra_ have changed," Coyote says.

"The offspring of one _Goa'uld_ ," Dani says. "And how many of your gifts have they renounced? And how different are they from the _Goa'uld_? And how like are they to what they might have become, did you not come to them long ago, bringing gifts?"

"You ask many questions," Raven observes dispassionately.

"Yet I do not ask you for answers. These are answers you have. Consider them." She holds Daniel's hand tightly to keep her own from shaking. She doesn't dare look away from the Furlings. This isn't a negotiation. It's a war.

"This is truth," Raven says. "And the third truth that you have promised us?" Raven leans close, resting her elbows on the table. Her breath smells of flowers. "We will pay its price when the time comes. My word and seal upon it."

Dani smiles. They're almost done, for good or bad. "That it's all in the timing. There is no greater secret than knowing _when_ to do a thing. And this is truth."

Coyote rears back, looking affronted. "This is too simple!" he roars.

"Simple truths are the greatest, and the hardest to grasp. So Oma teaches. But if you do not like this truth, I have another." She must have learned more on Kheb than she knew. But all they did was _talk._ And she did most of the talking.

"Will I like your truth?" Raven asks, cocking her head.

"You will not," Dani answers. "Once upon a time there was a woman, and in all her life she loved only two men, but they were a great king and the best knight in all the world. And so it was that she could not have both the men she loved, and when her heart was broken an empire was broken as well."

"Truth," Raven says reluctantly, looking at Coyote. "Three truths, and the answer to our riddle. She may have what she asks of us. And two prices more."

"Name what you would ask," Coyote growls, his eyes glowing feral yellow, "and weave well, mortal child, for believe that we will hold you to the very style and letter of your weaving."

It's all been for this. And if the whole thing seems like an absurd and pointless game, well, the Furlings are _alien_. Crazy, universe-destroying aliens. She takes a deep breath.

"That you will not give, nor cause to be given, nor allow to be given, nor barter, nor sell, nor convey, nor loan, nor provide by any other means, that which you have or can gain, to us or to those who would do us harm, willfully or unwittingly, whether it is knowledge, or technology, or another thing I have not named."

Coyote leaps up with a howl of fury, knocking his chair over backward. He knocks over his cup as well; a thin trail of mead rolls slowly across the table.

Raven is laughing like a maniac.

Dani's shaking now. She can't stop herself. She'd hoped they'd just say 'yes' -- if they had, they'd have bound themselves to watch over Earth and the welfare of the _Tau'ri_ until the end of Time.

"I shall not! I _will_ not! I shall tear out your heart and eat it instead!" Coyote roars. He seems to grow in size, in mass, becoming something darker, more feral. Outside the tent the sky turns black. There's thunder. Coyote stalks off and stands outside, staring up at the clouds, his back to them.

"This has been accomplished many times, and I am still here. If you do not like that bargain, here is another: go away and leave us alone. We are tired of your games," she says. She doesn't know why they didn't accept her first bargain. By the rules of their game they should have had to, shouldn't they? But she knows she doesn't know all the rules. Maybe they're allowed to change them in the middle.

She has to keep trying. She has to get them to _leave_.

"For how long shall we go, child?" Raven asks. She's still at the table. She sips from her cup.

"You must go for a hundred thousand of our years -- as we reckon time. Do not come to the _Tau'ri_ or to any of our kin, anywhere that we may be, offering gifts and bargains, until that time has passed. What is yours, remove from our reach."

"Done," Raven says instantly.

Dani feels a giddy sense of shock and relief. The bargain's been made. Is it enough? It will protect Earth, but will Raven understand 'any of our kin' to mean all the descendants of humanity seeded throughout the galaxy? Dani hopes so. Even if Raven doesn't -- or refuses to -- no one from Earth will be able to gain Furling technology for an unimaginably long time.

The thunder cracks again. It's raining hard, and the pavilion resounds with the drumming of water. Coyote's standing outside in the rain.

#

Daniel gets to his feet. They've won. At least, they've postponed the problem until some unimaginably distant future when they might even be a match for Raven and Coyote. He glances down. Dani doesn't look like she can manage to move under her own power. He puts an arm around her and helps her to stand.

Raven rises as well. "We are not yet finished. There are two prices left we have not met. What more will you ask of us?"

"You spoke to me of love," Dani says. "I ask you to learn it."

"This is a hard price," Raven says, cocking her head.

"It is you who have set it," Dani answers.

"Then we shall pay it. My word and seal upon it," Raven replies at last. Coyote stalks back into the tent. He should be wet. He isn't. He gestures at the side tables, looking angry and affronted.

"And what of all this?" he demands.

"Well, they were intended as gifts, but--"

"Daniel, _no_!"

He stops in horrified realization as Coyote smiles. It doesn't matter, he supposes, whether or not he explains that they _aren’t_ gifts and _aren't_ being given. Coyote's a trickster. He'll take the intention -- someone's intention, even if it isn't theirs -- for the deed.

"Then a gift for a gift. I shall undo your difficulties. And because you would presume to give us gifts, _I_ shall choose the payment of the last price."

#

 _One:_

"Daniel, why is it that you speak twenty-four languages and 'punctual' isn't one of them?"

"Jack?"

"We had a briefing at 1330. You're ten minutes late. Fifteen, now."

"I just had a couple of--"

"'1330' means '1330', Daniel."

"It's just that I--"

" _Now,_ Daniel."

The two men leave Daniel Jackson's office, heading for the briefing room.

"Jack, I forgot my notes!"

"Wing it."

#

 _Two:_

Jack has just given her a ring. _The_ ring, in fact. A marquise diamond in yellow gold, and the chance to spend the rest of her life explaining that she's Doctor Mrs.-General Jackson-O'Neill, no, not a medical doctor, and giving the military protocol department fits wherever they send him. It took him six entire months to ask after he made General, though she can't believe the delay was to work up the nerve. She'd just about decided he didn't want to marry again, which would be too bad but it's not as if she won't take what she can get, especially if what she can get is Jack.

On any terms he sets.

He finally gave it to her this afternoon.

The ring makes her hand look like someone else's.

It's a promise of marriage. On Abydos the women change their veiling style when they marry. She's far too old to marry on Abydos. There, she would have been married -- or taken in concubinage -- long ago. Now would be too late.

"Settled, then," he says, releasing her hand. "Now go home and put on something nice. We'll celebrate."

She pauses for a kiss -- she feels she's entitled -- when a new thought strikes her. "Sammy? Teal'c?"

"SG-1 won't be back from their mission until Tuesday. Teal'c's on Chulak; they're meeting him there and all coming through together. We'll tell them then."

It isn't snowing too badly by the time she reaches home. Her mind is on practical matters. His house is too small for two -- especially with all her things, and she's not giving up any of them -- but the location is perfect. They'll have to think of something, though. Maybe he can just order his XO to go buy them a new house. It's possible.

An engagement implies a wedding. She knows how to get married in fifty cultures, not including her own. She has the vague impression of vast expense, mandated humiliation, and a long white dress, but she's not clear on the details.

Everyone who could join them in marriage on Abydos is dead.

Maybe there's a simpler way to get married. She'll have to make the time to find out. She opens the door to 8-3, shifting from these thoughts to the contents of her wardrobe. She doesn't own a lot of dresses, and she's pretty sure Jack's expecting to see her in a dress tonight. She decides to choose something at random, so long as it isn't black. Almost every other dress she owns seems to be some shade of blue. Sammy says that's the only color the male eye is equipped to perceive. It's possible.

A breeze ruffles her hair. She looks around briefly, but can find no open window.

Did something that was supposed to just happen ... just ... not? She gazes into her hallway mirror. Happiness wars with the unsettled feeling of having just missed a step in a complicated dance.

"Wish you were here, Daniel," she whispers, twisting the ring on her finger. It's a pain that never quite leaves.

 _Once upon a time there was a woman, and..._

Then she goes to get dressed.

#

It's their first anniversary, and she quietly sends the quantum mirror to be locked up in storage. Jack gives her a Border Collie puppy as an anniversary present. She names him Sobaka. It means 'dog' in Russian. Of course Jack calls him Chewbacca, and the name sticks.

It's their fifth anniversary, and there's no sign of either Anubis nor the Replicator fleet. In Ida, the Replicators are falling in clusters to the Asgard disruptor weapon. It's only a matter of time before they are exterminated, but Ida is, after all, an entire galaxy. It will take time. But they _have_ time.

It's their seventh anniversary, and General Hammond retires. Jack's transferred to Washington to head up Homeworld Security in his place. He gets a second star to go with the step up. Naturally, Dani resigns as Head of Research to go with her husband to Washington. There's talk of finding her a job at the NID. Now that would be just ... odd.

Jack picks someone named Hank Landry to take his place at the SGC. They have twelve Gate teams again. It will never be the way it once was, but at least they've survived the worst; the SGC's growing once more. Landry's name is oddly familiar to her but she can't say why. Sammy's been a Full Bird for years. She'll be a General someday. When she is, Jack's going to push for her to get command of the SGC. It shouldn't be too hard. Homeworld Security's the oversight organization for the SGC. He can arrange a nice lateral transfer for Landry and move Sammy into the position. It's done all the time.

It will be strange to leave the SGC. She's spent almost half her life at Cheyenne Mountain. Ten years on SG-1, almost eight, now, as Head of Research. It may be harder for her to return to the outside world than it will be for Jack. She's seen less of it, in some ways. She was 25 when Catherine brought her into the program in 1996.

But Jack will take care of her. And she will take care of him. It's the way their lives have run from nearly the first moment they saw each other.

#

 _Three:_

She's late. Oh, god, she's late. Her first day at the SGC, and she's late.

Weeks of background checks, even after Catherine Langford found her and vouched for her. Flying to Washington for briefings about ... an alien device that can send you to other planets? This is 1998, not 2998. The world just keeps getting more bizarre, doesn't it?

Still, it's about a thousand times better than being a hideously overeducated TA at Berkeley on the perpetual verge of termination, with no hope of becoming a professor, let alone a tenured professor. She has four doctorates. She'll be thirty in a few years. She needs a steady job. And for some reason, the Air Force is in desperate need of specialists in Ancient Egyptian to work in their program. Apparently the entire galaxy's populated by people speaking ancient languages. It seems that she's just what they're looking for. Fortunately nobody's read her notes for a paper she never intends to write -- let alone try to publish -- on her theory that the myths about fairies are actually accounts of Extraterrestrial/Terran contact in prehistory. Despite everything she's been told in the past week, she really can't get used to the idea that the Air Force, of all entities, believes in little green men.

Although apparently they're grey.

And it appears she's going to meet them someday, because if she can pass another series of tests, the Air Force wants to train her to go through their Stargate. She's agreed, of course. There are _living_ ancient cultures out there.

She drives through the gates to Cheyenne Mountain. It's the first of three checkpoints she has to pass just to get inside the base, and by the time she does, she's forty-five minutes late. By the time she gets off the second elevator, she's thirty stories underground -- an hour late -- in a converted nuclear missile silo. An airman in green fatigues, carrying a rifle, hurries her along. She's missed half the Orientation Lecture.

The room's dark -- there's a slide-show going on -- so she hopes to slip in unnoticed, but the only empty desk is at the front. It's piled with briefing books. She slides into the seat, setting her backpack on the floor, and shrugs apologetically at the man behind the podium. He continues his lecture without missing a beat, even though he's seen her come in. She's grateful for that. It's something about System Lords, and... _Goa'uld_? It sounds like something out of a role-playing game.

Interesting tripthong.

He speaks a number of languages. She can hear it in his voice. Wait. She _knows_ him. Dr. Daniel Jackson. She's read his paper on dative case in Fourth Dynasty ritual objects. And she's familiar with his radical theories on dating the Great Pyramid. His arguments were interesting, but they would have been stronger if he'd referenced Nicholas Ballard's work on similar structures in Belize. He hasn't published anything at all in a couple of years. She'd wondered what had happened to him. She knew he'd been laughed out of Academia, but someone that brilliant would have to have surfaced somewhere.

He's been here, obviously.

She's quickly caught up in the lecture, sorry she missed the beginning. Maybe she can get his notes. If he's right about this -- and he obviously is -- then maybe her theories are correct as well.

Finally the lights come up.

"That's just a quick overview; you'll find more detailed information in your briefing books."

He takes questions for a few minutes. Pretty stupid and obvious ones, in her opinion. An airman begins to herd the others out. According to the schedule she was given before she got here, all of today is going to be devoted to more orientation lectures. She heads for the podium.

"Dr. Jackson? I'm Dana Ballard. I'm sorry I missed the first half of your lecture. I was wondering if you have notes?"

"Well, it's a pretty standard orientation lecture, actually. In fact, it's on tape. I can arrange for you to get a copy, if you let me know what department."

"Oh. Linguistics and Archaeology."

"Ah, you must be the linguist Catherine told me about," he says. "How's your Ancient Egyptian?"

"It's good," she says quickly. "I read Hieratic and Demotic and the pre-Dynastic forms of course, and speak Coptic." And thirty-five other languages.

He says something in a language that has an elusive familiarity. But she can't quite understand it. She cocks her head.

"You'll find that the vowels shift quite a lot in 1500 years. I'll work with you." He turns to go.

"Dr. Jackson -- do you think that there were extraterrestrials in Western Europe in 2000BCE influencing the Celtic cultures of the Rhine and Loire Valleys?" Two weeks ago she could not have imagined uttering that sentence to another living being.

He turns back. "I don't think it's impossible. You have a theory? Let me see your data."

An airman's hovering in the doorway, staring at her fixedly.

"I, um, think you may be late again."

She starts to leave. He stops her. "'Ballard'," he says questioningly. "Related to...?"

"I think you and I are cousins if you go back far enough."

"Well, everyone is," he says, smiling.

He has a nice smile. She thinks she's going to like it here.

#

She flings herself desperately into Daniel's arms, clinging to him as tightly as she clung to Jack that day they went through the Kelownan Gate to home. She's lost Jack. She won't be parted from Daniel, no matter what Coyote means to do.

 _Once upon a time there was a woman, and..._

The Furlings vanish. The gifts vanish. Even the pavilion vanishes. The two of them are left standing on the cold hillside. It's raining.

"Did we win?" Daniel asks cautiously, looking around.

She takes a deep breath, barely able to believe that they're both still here, and alive. "Yes and no," she says, after a long pause. "For the next one hundred thousand years, no Furlings and no Furling artifacts. That's good. But..."

"But Coyote said he was going to undo our -- or your, or my -- difficulties. And choose the last price -- payment -- himself. Meaning...?"

"Meaning he has the right to make us one -- and only one -- last gift, and do some other meddling according to whatever seems best to him, which doesn't reassure me. I don't see anything, though. I just hope his gift is something of a personal nature."

#

"Yeah, all things considered," Daniel says. Considering everything else the Furlings could give them. He takes off his glasses and tucks them into his jacket pocket. The rain has rendered them nearly useless.

"I guess I should go face the music," she says at last, stepping away from him. She squares her shoulders and raises her chin. In that moment, she looks eerily like Jack about to do something he doesn't want to do.

"Landry isn't going to be all that thrilled with me either, to tell the truth," Daniel says quietly.

She makes a face, shoving her glasses up to rub her eyes. Starts to settle her glasses back and comes to the same conclusion he has, and settles them on the top of her head instead. They hold hands as they walk back to the Gate through the rain. As Raven promised, the General and the other SG Teams are lying in the grass around the Gate, sound asleep. They look extremely wet -- they're _all_ extremely wet -- but they're breathing.

Dani hesitates, looking toward the Gate, and Daniel knows exactly what she's thinking. She could run -- now, again -- and no one could stop her. He tightens his grip on her hand; an unspoken plea. "It'll be okay," he says.

She glances at Landry. "He's going to have me shot."

"I'll talk him out of it. Come on. We'd better see if we can wake these guys up."

"Hope so," she says. She gives his hand one last squeeze and moves away to kneel beside Colonel Harper.

#

Harper awakens immediately when Dani touches him, and once he starts to move, the others begin to rouse as well. Daniel goes over to General Landry. He's sitting up, looking like a wet bulldog. His eyes focus on Daniel, and his expression sharpens into anger. "Dr. Jackson! Where are the Furlings?" He begins to struggle to his feet. Daniel helps him up.

"They, ah, _left_ , General." Daniel says.

" _Left_?" Landry looks around and sees Dani. "Dr. Ballard! You're under arrest! Colonel Harper, secure the prisoner. Dr. Jackson, dial us home. Somebody owes me an explanation."

But apparently it isn't going to be Dani, because when they gather around the Briefing Room table half an hour later -- just time for a hasty change into dry clothes -- Dani isn't there. The last Daniel saw of her, she was being led out of the Gate Room, her hands quick-tied behind her back. A prisoner.

SG-5 is being sent back to PHX-1138, but Daniel already knows what they'll find. Nothing. Dani told the Furlings to go away and leave humanity alone, and they have.

"Now, Dr. Jackson, if you'd be kind enough to tell me just what the hell happened back there?"

"Where's Dr. Ballard?" he answers. He needs to call Jack. Jack knows the meeting with the Furlings was today. He'll want to know what happened, and Daniel is one of only two people who can tell him.

"'Dr. Ballard' is in custody."

Daniel can hear the air-quotes around Landry's use of her name. Not a good sign. "I want to see her."

"And _I_ want answers. You were supposed to negotiate with those things, not send them packing."

Daniel thinks carefully. He doesn't want to lie to General Landry, but the truth isn't going to help matters. He wonders how much trouble Dani's in. She hasn't done anything she -- or he -- hasn't done before. But that was before Landry was in charge.

"General, this was never a negotiation. The Furlings wanted the answer to a question. Dr. Ballard had the answer. When she provided it to them, they left."

Landry stares at him and Daniel thinks of basilisks. "You've got to be kidding me," he finally says in disbelief. Daniel shakes his head silently. "And what was the question?"

He can tell he's being backed into a corner, but he can't see any way out. If he refuses to answer, the General will probably drop him down the same black hole he's got Dani in, and then who's going to get her out? "Whether or not we're like the _Goa'uld_ ," he answers reluctantly.

Landry makes a derisive noise. "Dr. Jackson, don't give me this snow job. They've been trying to give us things for over two months! The two of you spent the last six weeks telling me this was a trade overture and trying to come up with something they'd want. Now you're telling me that 'Dr. Ballard' figured out what they wanted. So what did she get for it?"

 _She got them to go away._ Daniel says nothing.

General Landry studies him for a moment longer. "My office," he says. He gets to his feet. Daniel follows him.

"Why the devil didn't you stop her?" Landry demands, the moment the door is shut. "I'd think carefully before you answer that, if I were you."

"In my opinion, it was too great a risk," Daniel answers levelly, settling on a half-truth. "They would have used any pretext to consider themselves ... no longer bound by the terms of the particular game they've been playing for the last several years."

"'In your opinion.' Dr. Jackson, you never wanted to negotiate with them at all," Landry says accusingly.

"No," Daniel answers. "I didn't."

"And you were ordered to. You were _both_ ordered to. That woman-- Your ... _alter-ego_ had no more authority than you did to disregard orders! She shouldn't have been there in the first place! Do I have to remind you that she mutinied? You should never have let her start talking to them at all!" Landry is shouting now.

 _"How was I supposed to stop her?"_

They glare at each other silently for a moment and then General Landry smiles tightly. "I think I'm going to give you time to figure that out, Dr. Jackson." He presses a button on his desk. "Walter, please send a security detail to my office to escort Dr. Jackson to a holding cell."

For a moment Daniel can't believe what he's just heard. "I-- _wait_! You can't do that!"

"Oh, you'll find that I can."

"She saved your life! She saved Earth! Look, we _told_ you about the Furlings before and you wouldn't listen! If you'll just let me explain--"

But Landry isn't listening. The door has opened, and Walter and two SFs are standing there. One of the SFs comes forward and takes Daniel's arm. Daniel shrugs him off angrily. "You're going to regret this," he tells Landry. He knows it sounds like a threat, but at the moment he's much too angry to care.

"I doubt it," General Landry answers curtly.

#

It takes Jack almost twenty-four hours to find out that Daniel's been locked up under guard at the SGC -- pending a full investigation into his part in the events on PHX-1138 -- and another twenty-four hours to get out there to see him. By that time Daniel's made up his mind to resign as soon as he can get to a computer to type up his letter of resignation. Whether he's done with the SGC, or the SGC is done with him, the net result is the same. They're done. He'll submit his application -- his and Dani's -- for the Pegasus Mission through the IOC. He's pretty sure it'll be accepted. If nothing else, Elizabeth still owes him a favor.

He's lying on a cot in the cell, staring up at the ceiling, when the door opens. Forty-eight hours has given him time to work his way through all the possible emotional responses to his current situation -- anger, philosophical acceptance, and worry about the future. Worry about Dani, most of all. If he's here, where is she? All he did was _not_ stop her from sending the Furlings away. She's the one who did it.

He gets to his feet when Jack walks in, more than a little irritated at how relieved he is to see him. But he's never been ashamed to use the proper tools for the job, and right now the proper tools are a General's stars. "Jack?" he says.

"I leave, and look at the mess you get yourself into."

"Where is she?" Daniel says without preamble. He sees Jack's expression flicker, and knows the answer is going to be bad.

"She's in California, Daniel. She's in prison."

Daniel takes a deep breath, gritting his teeth to keep from saying anything. _'Why'_ is obvious: General Landry's had her charged with everything that General Hammond could have charged _him_ with all these years, and didn't. "Is she all right?" he asks after a moment.

"Aside from being in prison," Jack says, in a way that tells Daniel he isn't getting the whole truth. "You want to tell me what happened on 1138? It looks like our friends have packed up and gone home."

"She told them to," Daniel says.

"So they just ... did?" Jack asks, raising his eyebrows.

"She told them three true things that included the answer to their riddle. They had to."

"Like... that we're _Goa'uld_?" Jack's obviously gotten a version of the story already. Daniel wonders exactly what Landry said.

"That we're a young race with the potential to become like the _Goa'uld_ if they meddle with us the way they meddled with the _Goa'uld_." He thinks of the dream Shifu gave him once, and knows it's true. "It's what they wanted to know."

"They could have asked."

"They did."

There's a long moment of silence. Jack walks over to the desk, pulls out the chair, and sits down. "'Gone,'" he says again.

"Forever," Daniel agrees. A hundred thousand years is close enough to that. "Them and every Furling artifact in the galaxy. It's the bargain she made."

"Pentagon isn't happy," Jack says idly.

"I don't give a damn."

"You know what she was going to do?"

Daniel regards him for a moment, then glances up at the security camera. He doesn't know whether it has audio, but it might. It's a dangerous game, this unspoken conspiracy. Dani sent the Furlings away -- was _able_ to send them away -- because of what Jack did, and Daniel helped him plan it. He chooses his next words carefully, as Raven might. All truth.

"When she disappeared, I thought she'd keep the rendezvous with the Furlings if she could: they'd asked for her, we all knew it. Neither of us knew what they wanted before she left. When she arrived at the pavilion, I didn't know what she was going to say to them, or how they'd respond."

There's a faint flicker of appreciation in Jack's eyes at Daniel's careful phrasing.

"I'm really tired of being locked up here, Jack."

"I'll go have another talk with Hank. You know you're not one of his favorite people right now."

"He's not one of mine. She saved the world, Jack."

"That's not how it looks from Washington," Jack says. "From there it looks like Jonas Hanson all over again. Except this time it's hitting them right in the pocketbook."

"Yeah, I can see how they'd take that a lot more personally than the lives of hundreds of innocent people on a planet they've never heard of," Daniel snaps.

"Back off, Daniel. This is me, remember? I'm on your side. Hank's under a lot of pressure to bring the SGC into line with more conventional military operations. I've seen this coming for a while. With the snakes gone, Washington figures it's time to clean house."

 _It's why they sent you to Washington, isn't it?_ Daniel doesn't say anything.

"It's probably going to take a while, but we'll get her out of there."

"How long?" Daniel asks. Jack doesn't answer. _"How long?"_ he repeats.

Jack sighs heavily. "Maybe a month or two. I'll talk to Hayes."

Daniel doesn't like it. It isn't fair. But his life and Dani's has never been about receiving fairness. It's been about searching for truth and doing the most good that they can. She's done good. And he's found more truth than he wants to.

"You know she won't be able to come back here," Jack says.

"That's all right," Daniel says. "I think we're both done here." _We're all done here. You and me and Sam and Teal'c. Heroes are inconvenient when the war is over._

Jack gets to his feet. His expression is carefully neutral. "Let's see if I can spring you, then. I'll be back."

"Oh, I'll be here," Daniel answers.

#

She's been in this situation before, though it was offworld, and SG-1 was always coming to rescue her then. Or they were all going to rescue each other. Not now. She tries to be philosophical about things. She _did_ win against the Furlings. But she'd really like to live.

She'd known, when they went back, that General Landry was going to be angry with her, but she'd expected to have a chance to _explain_. Instead, she was taken from the Gate Room under guard, given a quick examination in the Infirmary, and then driven over to the Academy hospital. She had a nice visit with Dr. MacKenzie, who didn't want to know anything about PHX-1138, but _did_ want to know if she was crazy. She spent the night there in Secured Medical -- déjà vu -- in restraints and sedation, but apparently she was sane enough to go to prison, because in the morning, more SFs -- four this time -- came for her, manacled her -- her first experience of manacles this trip, but not her last -- and drove her to Peterson. From there was flown to something called an 'Air Force Regional Confinement Facility', the military euphemism for a prison. Nevada? California? It doesn't really matter.

The military, like the _Goa'uld_ , isn't big on civil rights. She can't make a phone call, she doesn't get to see a lawyer, and she isn't even sure what she's being charged with, aside from completely pissing off General Landry. The cell is cold and only marginally more comfortable than a _Goa'uld_ prison cell, though at least she's being fed. Everything's grey, including the food. She isn't allowed to see or speak to any of the other prisoners. No books, no television, and -- obviously -- no computer. She wonders if they're hoping she'll die of boredom. She plays chess in her head.

Two days after she arrives, she's brought from her cell -- first time she's been out of it -- to a windowless room. There are two long tables. One table has two flags and three Generals behind it, no one she knows. The other table, facing it, has one chair. There are several cameras set up on tripods, enough to record the room from all angles. Her guards shackle her to the second table once she sits down. It's annoying. It'd hardly as if she's a violent criminal, is it?

The questions begin. She thinks at the time she's merely being interrogated. She'd been expecting that; someone, sometime, must want her final report. The first questions are odd, but she assumes they're just for the record. She answers everything they ask freely. She has no reason to lie. Yes, she'd signed the Non-Disclosure Agreement and the Loyalty Oath when she'd come to work at Stargate Command. Yes, she considers herself a citizen of the United States of America -- here -- despite having been born in another dimension. Yes, she'd been ordered to negotiate with the Furlings and set up a trade agreement in order to obtain their technology. Yes, she'd gone Absent Without Orders, using an offworld Stargate without permission. Yes, she'd deliberately followed a course of action that would cause the Furlings to withdraw from contact with Earth and withhold their technology.

She doesn't realize it's a trial until it's over and they're reading out a list of charges (she's pretty sure that should have come first). At last she knows why she's here. The first ones make sense: insubordination, disobeying orders, absence without permission. Those are true; it's just that she knows she wasn't wrong to act as she did. But the list continues, and suddenly she can't believe what she's hearing. Conspiracy with a foreign power? _Treason_?

She's on her feet shouting -- oh, she knows why they chained her to this damned table now -- demanding to speak to General O'Neill. She can't believe General Landry would do this to her, no matter how much he hates her-- She tells them they have no right to try her, assuming they can actually call this a trial: she's a civilian; she shouldn't be tried before a military court at all. And none of the people who were actually involved are here. Not Jack. Not Daniel. Not Charlie or Steve. Not even General Landry. Even if -- by some freakish loophole she doesn't understand -- the U. S. Government has some insane right to court-martial her, she knows she's entitled to representation, witnesses, a right to defend herself.

The General in the middle just looks her in the eye and tells her that she's to be shot for her crimes. He bangs a gavel. The three of them rise and walk from the room. When the door closes behind them, she slumps back into the chair, stunned. _Daniel, did you see this part of the future too, when you came to my world?_

When the SFs come to take her back to her cell, she doesn't resist.

Apparently she isn't going to be shot immediately. A day passes; two. If her guards know when she's going to be executed, they won't tell her, though she asks. She takes what comfort she can from the knowledge that even if Daniel is in almost as much trouble as she is (he can't be in _quite_ as much trouble, she tells herself consolingly), both Jack and Sam knew the date of the PHX-1138 mission. They'll want to know what happened. They'll wonder where she is. Jack is her friend. He's a General. Surely he can fix things.

When SG-1 mutinied to save Earth from Apophis, General Hammond forgave them. When she disobeyed orders to send the Tollan off with the Nox, General Hammond forgave her. When SG-1 went AWOL -- twice -- because of the Atanik armbands, General Hammond forgave them. Why does this time have to be so different?

 _Because General Landry isn't General Hammond._ But charging her with treason and having her shot still seems a little extreme.

She has nothing to do but think, and so she does. Coyote said he would 'undo their present troubles,' and she hadn't been quite sure what he'd meant -- who knows what a Furling's idea of 'present troubles' is? She wonders if her death is his idea of a solution. Surely there are simpler ways than having her tried and executed by the government? Probably none as entertaining, though.

#

The last week has been one of the worst of his life. He's on a leave of absence, but -- Jack's advice -- hasn't turned in his resignation yet, though he still plans to. They might need his position at the SGC for leverage. Because the situation isn't just bad, it's surreally bad. While Jack's still talking to JAG about moving Dani's hearing someplace where she can actually present evidence in her own defense -- probably Washington -- they find out she's already been tried and sentenced. She's going to be executed on charges of treason.

It isn't General Landry's doing. He's as horrified as Daniel is when he finds out, and gratifyingly furious -- once the two of them stop shouting at each other long enough to _communicate_. Landry intended to send her to prison, but nothing on the charge-list carried a death-sentence. Someone -- somewhere -- in the name of politics -- _meddled_. Jack's been able to call in enough favors to arrange a stay of execution. Otherwise she'd be dead by now.

 _"Why?"_ Daniel demands. He's on the phone to Jack, again. Jack's trying to fix things from Washington and General Landry's trying to fix them from Colorado. Daniel and Dani are caught in the middle. Again.

"Dead people disappear, Daniel," Jack says. He sounds grimly certain. Something from his life before the SGC, Daniel thinks. That life he's never talked about.

"You think -- you think somebody wants her? But she doesn't know anything!" Nothing she wouldn't freely tell, he means. The Furlings are gone. It doesn't matter now.

" _You_ know things, Daniel," Jack points out. "Lots of people would like you to come and work for them."

And if he vanished, people would look for him, but nobody would look for Dani if she was dead. "You've got to get her out of there," Daniel says desperately.

"Right now I'm working on getting us in there," Jack says obliquely.

#

"Ballard!" She sits up. There's a guard at her door. As she's been instructed, she moves to the middle of her cell.

"You've got visitors."

She takes a deep breath, willing her racing heartbeat to slow. 'Visitors' are much better than hearing it's time to go and be shot. The cell-door opens. She stands quietly as a second guard enters, carrying manacles and a belt.

#

They wait in the Interview Room for her to be brought out. She's in an orange jumpsuit, in chains, flanked by armed guards. Her face lights up when she sees them; hope, relief. Daniel doesn't want to tell her that they haven't come to get her out. But the political climate in Washington is changing, as if echoing the history of her universe. Jack hasn't been able to get in to see Hayes. That's not a good sign.

"Guys," she says. "Missed you."

"Dana," Jack says. "How's it going?"

"This hotel sucks," she says bluntly.

Daniel moves toward her, and the guards shift uneasily. _No touching._ Jack orders them to wait outside. The guards are reluctant, but Jack's a General. "Aw, c'mon guys, you think she's gonna take us both out?"

"We'll be right outside, sir."

"Go. Wait." Jack waves them off.

Daniel goes over and takes her hand. Her fingers are cold. "Are you okay?" he asks.

She ducks her head. "General Landry--" she says.

"No," Jack says. "You were never charged with treason. Not from the SGC end, anyway. Somebody's screwing with you."

"It wasn't much of a trial, but I remember the 'treason' part," Dani says neutrally. She looks up at Jack, and there's a moment of silence. "If you could make it go away, you already would have."

Daniel looks at Jack in surprise, but Jack's face is unreadable. He's afraid to guess what that means. It's been four days since Dani's so-called trial, a week since her arrest. It's taken them less time to save the galaxy. He looks back at Dani. She's smiling now, but she doesn't look happy.

"You forget where I'm from. We spent nearly five years watching Washington slice the SGC to ribbons, Jack. They cut our operating budget by three quarters to spend the money on things they understood. They'll take yours too, if you don't watch them. Don't you think being able to say that a member of the SGC was executed for treason makes a fine opening gambit at budget review time? I do."

"They're not going to kill you," Jack says harshly.

She looks at him, and Daniel can see what she doesn't want to say to Jack. _But I'm not going to get out of here, am I?_ Daniel wants to tell her she's wrong. But if she were, he thinks Jack would already have told her so. He thinks Jack would have told _him_.

Her theory has a horrible plausibility. The _Goa'uld_ are gone, after all. So there's no need to pour billions of dollars every year into defending Earth from them. Especially if you can also point to a long history of errors in judgment upon the part of those running the program -- like granting asylum to quantum doubles who go on to commit treason. Who might -- if Jack is also right -- be of so much more use elsewhere.

He should have let her run when she'd wanted to. He should have gone with her. She'd known what she was coming back to. _Heroes are inconvenient when the war is over._ Her war's been over longer than his.

"It's all right," Dani says softly. He's not sure whether she's followed his train of thought, or is answering Jack. It's all right for them to kill her? Or all right for Jack to fail to save her? Neither, Daniel knows, can be true. He wonders if all of this can have been worth it simply to teach General Landry to cut the members of his command a little ... slack.

No.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to take a walk. You kids behave yourselves, now." Jack goes to the door. There's a short conversation at the door, too low for Daniel to hear. Jack goes out, but the guards don't return.

Daniel puts his arms around her. It's awkward, because the manacles keep her from raising her hands above her waist. She leans against him. "It's all right," she says again.

"It's not," Daniel says. "It won't ever be all right." Not if she rots here for the crime of saving the human race from destruction. He'd break her out of here himself if he could figure out how, but where would they go? No place on Earth could be safe.

Suddenly -- out of the corner of his eye -- he sees a ripple of light. Dani pulls away from him with a sound he's never heard from her before -- a wail of utter terror. He turns. Coyote is here. He doesn't look even vaguely human now. He looks like the Egyptian depictions of Anubis come to life. he regards them with amusement, long ears flicking back and forth.

Dani's whimpering faintly, breath hitching in her throat, unable to look away from him. _Kelowna,_ Daniel thinks. _Coyote appeared to her on Kelowna just like this._ He grabs her, holding her against him. He can feel her shaking. He doesn't know why Coyote is here, but if he means to take Dani again, he'll have to take both of them.

"You said you'd go away," Daniel finally says.

"I said I would undo your difficulties," Coyote points out innocently, red tongue lolling. "Do you not wish my assistance?"

 _"No,"_ Dani starts to say, her voice slurred with terror.

 _"Yes,"_ Daniel says, cutting her off. She twists in his arms to stare at him.

"Do you want to die? Do you want to become somebody's pet science project?" he demands.

She's shaking her head wildly, unable to articulate all the reasons this is beyond dangerous. He already knows. And in his mind it's three years ago, and he was holding her just like this. They didn't know each other yet, and she was fighting to go with Coyote. And now it's three years later, and they're in each other's arms again. Coyote is here again; the pattern is finally complete, and this time they _both_ have to go with Coyote. It's a terrible gamble, but the alternative is worse. If they stay, she'll die. He knows it.

 _Goodbye, Jack. I hope you figure it out._ "Take us both -- together," he says, and Coyote laughs.

#

Daniel sits up -- groaning, disoriented. The last thing he remembers clearly is coming back from PHX-1138...

No. He was in California with Jack.

He's lying in a ditch. At least it's dry.

He looks behind him and sees Dani. She's sprawled on her face. He sees the sparkle of her glasses and picks them up before he rolls her over. She's wearing some kind of tunic and long skirt. She sits up, blinking. He hands her the glasses, and she settles them into place and regards him, eyes wide.

"You were in prison," he tells her.

She blinks, slowly, as her memories return. " _Coyote,_ " she says, and scrambles to her feet, looking dazed and horrified and indignant all at once. Automatically she shakes out the skirts, still frowning at him in a puzzled fashion. He gets up and takes inventory. He's wearing boots, baggy pants, a tunic like hers, and a long leather vest. For reasons of his own, Coyote's decided to outfit them in what Daniel supposes is local costume. At least it saves him from trying to figure out how to get the shackles off her.

"You should never have--" she begins.

"Don't start," Daniel says.

She takes a deep breath, obviously trying to decide whether to continue the argument. He gives her an obstinate look. This is one conversation he doesn't mean to have. After a moment she sighs and brushes her hair back. Looks around. Points. "There's the Stargate."

He turns and regards the Stargate with a certain amount of relief. A Stargate means they're offworld -- he wouldn't really have put it past Coyote to have dumped them someplace else on Earth. They climb out of the ditch and walk toward it. Wherever they are now, it's summer. The air smells of hay and his nose prickles faintly. They reach the DHD and stop, not looking at each other.

"You should go back," she says, running her finger along the edge of the dial.

He supposes she's right. He _could_ go back, after all. But she can't, so there really isn't any choice at all, is there? "No GDO," he says.

"Chulak, Dakara, Edora, Cimmeria, the Land of Light. You could get a message to the SGC from any of them."

"Did I mention I'm facing a disciplinary hearing?" Daniel asks idly, staring off into the distance. There's rolling grassland as far as the eye can see. Out of the corner of his eye he sees her glance sideways at him.

"I'm on Death Row." There's a long pause. "I'd sort of been planning to quit."

"Yeah. Thinking about that, too." He looks at her. She's looking at him.

"You could still live on Earth," she says.

Going back would be sensible, would be logical, would be reasonable. If he'd ever really done the reasonable thing, Earth would have been a cinder a decade ago. "I hadn't been planning to stay."

"If they -- if General Landry -- if the SGC -- if they find us, they'll have to bring us back." _Whether they want to or not._ She doesn't need to spell it out for him, all the details of orders you have to follow whether you like them or not. He -- _they_ \-- might have been able -- or at least willing -- to pick and choose the orders they'd follow. Others aren't so lucky. He's sure the way that they've vanished hasn't helped matters. But the galaxy is a big place.

"If they find us," he agrees.

They'll both be fugitives now. They won't dare let any of their friends know where they are, or even that they're out here at all. Jack and Sam -- anyone at the SGC -- would be ordered to bring them back. Even if he told Teal'c they're out here -- and he's not quite sure what the situation is on Dakara these days -- all Teal'c could do is tell Jack. It would be nice to get a final message through. But risky, and ultimately not that useful. It's not the way he'd expected to end his career. Frankly, he was expecting to die -- in a permanent fashion -- at some point during the last decade or so. He guesses that's off the table now (probably). He supposes they could have asked Coyote for something else, assuming Coyote had been in a mood to let them pick and choose. But wishes are dangerous things. Probably best to keep it simple. He's done enough meddling with Time to be wary of trying to undo things. Safer just to go away.

"We don't even know where we are," she says.

"There's that." It might not even be his -- _their_ \-- own universe, but he knows where they aren't, and that's the important thing. They aren't in a military prison, and he isn't going to have to say goodbye to her again. He's tired of that.

"So where shall we go?" Dani asks.

Daniel steps closer to her and puts his arm around her waist. She leans against him. "Oh, I don't know. Out there. Thataway."

#

The temple's here, but Shifu isn't. Her equipment was right where she'd left it, which answered one question. She's explained about meeting Shifu now. Daniel doesn't think he'll be back.

They know they should be moving on. They've spent the last few weeks making a list of places that will probably be safe to go; they can trade her gun, and a few of the other things in her vest, for some basic supplies, but they'll need more things soon -- food and more clothes just to begin with -- and they'll have to figure out some way to earn those. There's probably not a lot of use for archaeologists out here, but you never know.

He's growing a beard. Not much choice there. He can't shave cleanly with her KBar.

Allergies are going to be a problem.

#

It's been almost a month. She's felt ill and uncomfortable all day, and is doing her best to keep it from Daniel. The aspirin helps; she's willing to take it because there's more, because it has a half-life before it goes bad and she can't remember how long the pills have been in her vest, and because they have T3s in reserve. But every pill gone is one they can't replace. Medical technology is ... rudimentary out here, or just plain weird. If either of them gets badly hurt -- or really sick -- they'll need to risk going to one of the places they know can help them -- and risk capture and return to Earth -- or die. Not a choice either of them wants to have to make.

But she _hurts_.

At least she knows it isn't appendicitis. It could be food poisoning; they've been living off the land, with mixed results. But the symptoms aren't right.

In the middle of the night the pain wakes her up. She feels the blood between her thighs, and goes back to the bathhouse to wash. It's no longer as tidy as it was when Shifu was here to watch over things, though the soaking pool is still hot, apparently fed by a hot spring which does not require the intervention of the Ascended to function. They use it for cleaning everything.

She takes one of the towels from the bench -- they're grey with use; the soap is long gone -- and sits on the edge of the bath, pressing the cloth between her legs. The bleeding hasn't stopped -- in fact, it's getting worse. If she'd been going to bleed to death, why couldn't she have done it on Earth? It would have been so much more convenient...

A few minutes later, Daniel appears in the doorway. "You were gone so long, and you weren't..." He stops. Sees the blood.

"I'm sorry," she says, though she's not sure what she's apologizing for.

"You'll be all right in a few days, won't you?" he asks tentatively. Testing a theory.

Comprehension comes all at once, and she blushes furiously. She isn't bleeding to death. There's nothing wrong with her. She's _menstruating_. Menstrual cramps. Menstrual blood. It's all coming back to her now, from her life before Hathor.

"I _can't_ be," she groans, shaking her head in disbelief. She sees the understanding in her face reflected in his.

"Well ... I think we know what Coyote decided to give you," Daniel says, looking absolutely mortified. "We're, ah, going to have to be ... careful." If this is a gift, it's a two-edged one. If the medical technology out here is rudimentary, the birth control is even more primitive.

"Still," she manages to say, cheeks flaming, "he could have done something worse."

"Much worse," Daniel agrees.

#

He sits beside her, watching her sleep. This world is safe, as far as they know, and their refuge is well-hidden, but they haven't survived as long as they have -- over two years, now -- by being sloppy.

They might have made a baby tonight. They'll know in a few weeks.

It's an odd life, moving constantly from world to world, but he's content, and he thinks -- no, he _knows_ \-- she is too. And, maybe, if they're lucky -- or unlucky (they're trying, now, to get her pregnant, which is something of a relief after so much time spent trying to avoid it and there are still times when he can't decide whether or not the baby she wants so much -- _they_ want (it wasn't all her decision) -- is a great idea, or the worst mistake they've ever made) -- anyway, if this all works out, it won't be just the two of them out here any more. They'll be a family.

Again.

Because SG-1 was their family, his and hers, and they both miss that.

It's taken a very long time -- years, to be absolutely exact -- but she's finally talked about her old team. _Really_ talked. Before -- the last time she was here -- she talked a little, mostly about 'Sammy' -- but now, in the dark, over campfires, he gets the real stories.

When Teal'c taught her Jaffa staff forms, she'd reciprocated by teaching him to dance. She'd taught him, in fact, to jitterbug. They'd snuck Teal'c off the Base one night and the two of them had entered a dance contest. Won, too.

She and 'Sammy' spent a lot more downtime together than he and Sam did. Reasonable. Two of the few women in the SGC. On the same Gate team. Sammy never did manage to teach her to cook, though she tried. Dani tells him about the two of them zipped into one sleeping bag together for warmth offworld, kicking and squirming like a couple of eight-year-olds, until someone -- guess who? -- told them to shut up and go to sleep or there'd be no television for a week. Sammy was a sister, to make up for the sister she'd lost.

The only one she won't talk about, even now, is _him_. She won't even say the name unless she's referring to Jack-here. Still, he's learned some things. He knows Jack can juggle. He knows Dani can juggle. He's gathered -- deciphering some of what she tells him is like decoding a long-dead alien language -- that they'd juggle with each other offworld when things were dull. Things from their packs -- he knows Jack used to carry a couple of tennis balls with him almost everywhere -- things they'd pick up along the way. It was always more challenging, she said once, when the local gravity didn't _quite_ match Earth's.

The two SG-1s were just the same. They were so different. He, Sam, Jack, and Teal'c were a family. Her SG-1 was a family, too, but a different kind. It's hard to measure relative degrees of closeness. Unfair, too. And even if her friends are dead and his aren't -- and they're her friends too, by now -- it's not as if they're ever going to see them again.

He sits in the darkness, listening to her breathe. In a couple of hours he needs to wake her to take watch -- safe doesn't mean stupid -- but for now he can let her sleep, and hope for the future.

He'd hoped for a family with Sha're. A blessing, he knows now, that it never happened. Dani's lost three families. One by birth and two by adoption. All dead now.

This family -- _their_ family -- will survive.

#

It's mid-afternoon. The day is bright and clear. He lies with his head in her lap, and she hopes he's sleeping. He'll need all his strength when they make their move for the Stargate. She can see it (it's about a mile away) and it's still guarded by the very confused remains of Ninhursag's Household Guard. They'll give up soon -- or be rounded up by the Resistance. Their overlord is dead. They just need time to realize it. Too bad they didn't realize it a little sooner.

She sits with one hand cupped around the shaft of her staff weapon, the other on his shoulder. She isn't too worried. They're well hidden. And they can fight. She's pregnant, but not very. Not enough to slow them down. Not yet. Barely starting to show.

They were looking for a safe place to stay for a while. It was one of the reasons they came here. The broker back on Nerial said this place was peaceful. Either he was wrong or he was lying. Too bad they don't dare go back there to figure out which. She thinks he might have guessed that they were _Tau'ri_. They don't dare stay long in any place that knows about the _Tau'ri_.

All the places they used to go back in her (their) SGC days -- and isn't it one of the worse jokes of her life that she thinks of that now as a safe time? -- used to have strings of letters and numbers for names. Now half the ones they go to -- like here -- don't have names at all, or not ones they know. A lot of the addresses they know they don't dare dial: without a MALP to tell them what's on the other side, they could be dead seconds after they walk through. Vacuum. Toxic atmosphere. Black hole. So on planets that _do_ have knowledge of the Stargate, they take their addresses and trade for news of what's on the other side. Is it safe to go?

They thought this place was safe. And in one sense it is. They can breathe here. There are no deadly diseases. No lethal levels of radiation. No _Goa'uld_. No Jaffa.

But there _was_ a _Goa'uld_ here before Anubis' war, and when it left, taking its Jaffa with it, it left its human court behind. Did they embrace their freedom from their snakehead overlords and throw in their lot with the local slave population?

Of course not.

They took over.

It took her and Daniel about two weeks all told to escape from the Palace the first time, assess the local situation, set up a Resistance group, infiltrate the Palace again and kill the _Goa'uld's_ former _lo'tar_ , now calling herself the Goddess Ninhursag. (Not that she wouldn't have been dead soon in any event: she'd been injecting herself with a solution containing _naquaadah_ so she could get her former master's toys to work. It was one of the reasons the locals believed in her power.) A _Goa'uld_ personal shield won't stop a longbow arrow.

Ninhursag's Household Guard took the whole assassination thing very hard, though. And they had energy cannon.

The cannon missed -- if they hadn't, the two of them would be dead now -- but the blasts hit the trees as the two of them escaped through the forest, and exploding trees make fine shrapnel. Daniel took a piece of wood through the thigh. Dani got the giant splinter out, bandaged the wound tight, and stopped the bleeding. She can finish cleaning it and stitch it up when they get out of here. She has medicine in her pack. Herbs for fever, for pain. Poultices for infection. They've always been enough before.

It isn't deep. Not _that_ deep, she tells herself. It missed the arteries. He has her quarterstaff. They can make it to the Gate once the guards leave. They'll need an hour to cover the distance, she thinks. They could make it faster, but she doesn't want him to start bleeding again.

But it's time to go. That's one of the rules they've set themselves for situations like these. Stay, and the locals might come to rely on them too much -- or decide to kill them, you never know. They've toppled tyrants before, even killed a couple of _Goa'uld_. Stay even a few days, and they might be tempted to stay too long. They don't know where the SGC will send a Gate Team next. They have to keep moving.

She wonders, sometimes, if Daniel's ever been tempted to just go home. She's promised herself she'll never ask him.

But.

Women die in childbirth all the time, especially out here. She's old for a first child. If she dies, she needs to find some way to make sure he'll go back to Earth. It's a pity she can't just arrange to Ascend and _tell_ him to. She sighs faintly. It's a problem for another day, although she'd really rather contemplate her own death than his.

Deep puncture wounds can turn septic quickly.

The guards by the Gate should go soon. Once they're gone, the two of them can start. Look for closer cover and lie up there. Wait. Move on. Slow but sure. It's how they've stayed alive.

Daniel stirs, waking. He pulls himself into a sitting position, wincing. She supports him against her body.

"Clear yet?" he asks, his voice low.

"Not yet. A few more hours, tops. Leg?"

"Stiff. I'll be okay." He sighs. "We've got to stop doing this."

She makes a faint sound of amusement. As if they could just turn their backs on people in trouble. "Sure." She reaches for the canteen, offers him water. He drinks, offers it to her. She takes a few swallows, puts it back in her pack.

"Where shall we go when we get to the Gate?" she asks.

"I've been thinking." There's a long pause. "Edora."

Automatically she feels his forehead, but there's no fever. He can't possibly be in his right mind, though. Edora is an SGC Treaty World. They have a GDO and an IDC; they make regular shipments of _naquaadah_ to Earth -- yearly, if it's the same here as it was where she came from. People could be looking for them there. People could have told Laira to be looking for them if they showed up there.

"Edora has good medical care -- for its level of development, anyway. They have antibiotics, because Earth sends them. No one from Earth goes there except when the _naquaadah_ is being sent through and trade goods are being exchanged, and the Teams don't go far from the Gate," Daniel says.

Antibiotics. Daniel will need them. "Laira will tell them," she protests.

"I'll ask her not to. I'll think of a good reason. We can be gone again before anyone from the SGC comes. Just a few days, and we'll leave again."

She wraps her arms around him, holding him tight. Just a few days. They both know he needs antibiotics for his leg. A place to rest with some notion of asepsis. Good food, clean water. Someplace warm. The Edorans always need more labor. She can spin and weave -- she learned on Abydos -- and she's a fair midwife. They have things to trade.

He puts his hand over hers. "Yes," she says, sighing. "We'll go to Edora."

#

It's three years since the disastrous -- or not, depending on your point of view -- conclusion of the Furling negotiations. Three years since Dani and Daniel vanished from a locked interview room in the middle of a secure military prison. It'd be nice to blame the NID for that, but he can't. He was gone less than fifteen minutes. The guards never moved off the door. The whole place was locked down the moment he saw the empty room, and they turned the whole prison inside-out. The two of them weren't taken away somewhere. They're just ... gone.

The security tapes covering the room have a three-minute gap. Just static. Before that, the two of them are there. After that, they aren't. The Asgard could have beamed them out, except he's talked to Thor, and Thor says they didn't.

Daniel never made a really complete report about what happened on PHX-1138, and Dani never made any report at all. Maybe the answers would have been there. He'd like to think that Dani's escaped -- somehow -- and that Daniel's with her.

A 'goodbye' would have been nice.

His phone rings. His private line.

"O'Neill."

"It's Colonel Carter, General, at the SGC."

Well, Carter sounds awfully formal this morning. "Carter?"

"Last week's SGC mission reports have just gone out to the Pentagon, sir, and I've just remembered something I failed to note in SG-1's mission to Edora. We were renewing the _naquaadah_ mining treaty with Laira, and she mentioned that we'd just missed an old friend and his wife who'd been staying with them for a few days."

O'Neill frowns at the phone. Carter does not just "leave things out" of her reports. And if she does, she writes follow-up reports. She doesn't phone Generals to tell them what she would have written. Unless there's a good reason not to leave a paper-trail. They have friends among the Edorans, but the only person Laira is likely to have called an 'old friend' -- and who would have visited and left -- is Daniel. Carter's telling him that Daniel -- and his 'wife' -- have been there. Recently. It's been a few years, but it's still -- all things considered -- probably just as well not to mention names.

"Thank you Carter. Noted."

"Yes, General. Thank you, sir."

#

He isn't, technically, here.

Anyone you asked would say he's on Chulak. Rya'c and his wife Kar'yn -- and just when the hell did that kid get that old? -- have just had a baby. There's a big party. It's easy enough to slip out for a few hours. He isn't sure this cloak-and-dagger stuff is necessary, but he isn't sure it isn't. Better safe. Both Carter and Teal'c know where he's going, in case this is actually some kind of complicated trap. If he doesn't come back, they'll make a fuss. Depending on who's grabbed him -- if he's grabbed -- it might even do some good.

Edora's a pretty place. He's occasionally thought about retiring here. Retirement's coming up in a few years. But that cabin in Minnesota is calling his name. And anyway, last time he checked, Laira'd remarried. Which is good.

The Edorans have planted a garden around the Stargate, and there's a path leading to the village. He follows it. It's summer. Harvest time. They've done a good job of rebuilding since the Fire Rain, with the SGC's help. And they'll be ready for the next one, too. He wonders what the SGC -- what _Earth_ \-- will be like in 150 years.

If Daniel's been here, he's pretty sure Daniel will have left him some kind of message. There's a message he needs to leave for Daniel in return. If Daniel's been here once, he might come back. It's worth a shot, at least.

When he gets to the village, Laira greets him. The years have been kind to her. She has three children now, a second family. He's never asked about the paternity of the oldest girl.

"Jack. You don't visit often enough. Come inside."

He sits at her table, lets her pour him a cup of cider. They talk about how things are going. The Edorans do most of the mining, sending the raw ore through the Stargate in exchange for seed, medicine, farm animals, some low-level technology.

"Laira, I've come to ask about my friends."

She cocks her head, assessing him. "The ones who visit us."

There's been more than one visit? "Yes. Did they ... leave you any message for me?" Daniel would know he would come.

She shakes her head. "No. But come. Talk to Daniel yourself. He's working in the fields."

He almost doesn't recognize Daniel when Laira brings him to the field. He remembers the fields from his own time here, the hours of back-breaking labor involved in getting a crop into the ground, and he'd only been here for planting, not harvest. And he hadn't chosen his exile.

Daniel's cutting grain. He handles the long scythe well enough -- not as expertly as the other men in the field, but not as if this is the first time he's ever held one, either. He's wearing one of the shapeless Edoran felt hats, and has a shirt tied around his waist. His skin is burnt dark by the sun. As O'Neill watches, he stops and sneezes violently. Pulls a large square of cloth from somewhere and snuffles into it. Prepares to go on. Watching him, O'Neill isn't sure what to feel. Anger? Relief? He's here and he's alive; that's most of what matters.

"Daniel!" Laira calls. Daniel stops and turns toward her. He isn't wearing his glasses, so all he sees, O'Neill knows, is Laira and an olive-drab blur.

"Daniel?" he calls in turn.

Daniel waves, but he still looks cautious as he crosses the field. He stops at the edge and hands his scythe to one of the boys waiting there. Stops to drink from one of the buckets, and then to pour another dipper of water over his head and shoulders before shrugging into his shirt. He pulls out his glasses and fumbles them into place; O'Neill can see that they're broken again. He rakes his damp hair back and walks the rest of the way toward them, still looking wary.

"Jack."

"So, Daniel. Long time no see. Where's Dani?"

"Here."

The voice comes from behind him; he'd heard the approach. He turns. She's panting and out of breath. She's been running hard. One hand grips the shaft of a Jaffa staff weapon. She's leaning on it for support as she gasps for air. The other clutches her belly.

She's pregnant.

Not hard to guess who the proud father is.

"You shouldn't be running," Daniel says in alarm.

"They said-- someone-- came-- through the Gate--" She looks at him.

"It's all right," Daniel says. He glances at O'Neill for confirmation.

O'Neill raises his hands. _We come in peace._ "I'm alone."

"It's true," Laira confirms.

Daniel hurries over and helps Dani to sit down. Hard to tell in what she's wearing, but it looks like the baby will be here soon. O'Neill wonders if it's their first, and decides it is. A baby would be enough reason for them to risk making contact after all this time, given what they thought the situation was when they disappeared. They probably want to settle here on Edora and don't want to risk it if someone might show up to drag Dani back to Earth. And he knows they both know the schedule of the renewal of the Edoran mining treaty. They could only hope that someone they knew would be overseeing the renewal, and that friendship would trump whatever orders they think are in force.

Daniel kneels beside Dani and puts an arm around her shoulders. Both of them look at him. Laira is looking at him, too. He's not sure how much they told her. Enough, obviously, so the message she gave Carter was very carefully worded. Laira's always liked Daniel. If anyone else had come looking for her guests, he's pretty sure they wouldn't have found them.

"It's been a little hard to get in touch with you," O'Neill says.

"Sorry," Daniel answers, without apology. Dani just shrugs. Her breathing's steadied now, but her face is still flushed and she isn't letting go of her weapon. They've been on the run a long time.

"You mind telling me just what the hell happened back at Edwards?" he says.

"Coyote came back," Dani says.

"You said--"

"He'd left himself a loophole," Daniel says. "It was the last one."

"So you two decided to run for it," O'Neill says.

"Beats getting shot," Dani answers.

O'Neill shakes his head in exasperation. Sighs. "Yeah, well, if you'd just stuck around a little while longer, you could have saved yourself all this trouble. I twisted Hayes' arm and got you a pardon. You're free."

They both stare at him as if they can't figure out what he's saying. "But you said..." Daniel says.

He'd never said. But Daniel is good both at reading between the lines and jumping to conclusions. Maybe the Furlings helped. "I didn't say it was easy," O'Neill says. It hadn't been. It might not even have been enough to save her if she'd still been sitting in that jail cell (he doesn't let himself think about that; over and done). Accidents happen.

But Henry Hayes, thank god, has never been a fan of secret trials and kangaroo courts, and the people who'd railroaded Dani had been stupid enough to tape the entire thing. Once he'd finally managed to get his hands on that -- god bless Carter -- he'd been able to talk Hayes into pardoning Dr. Ballard on the slim chance she was still alive -- wherever she was -- and they could find her. And even if she was dead -- there was no way of knowing -- neither he nor Hank was willing to see her die a convicted traitor.

"You can come home, kids."

Dani laughs and says something to Daniel in a language that isn't English.

"He has woven well," Daniel agrees in English.

"And all truth," she answers.

Daniel stands up and lifts her to her feet. "I really ought to finish up here," he says, looking over at the field.

"Where you ought to go is _home_ ," Laira says firmly, regarding the two of them with stern fondness.

"Okay, Jack," Daniel says. "Let's go ... home."

#


End file.
